Happy holidays!
With much love,
AΩ High Priestess and Imperator
AΩ High Priestess and Imperator
Leslie and David Griffin
Showing posts with label Leslie McQuade Griffin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leslie McQuade Griffin. Show all posts
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Happy Winter Solstice!
Friday, May 24, 2013
ISIS RISING: Pagan Magick, Anthropology, and Christian Mysticism
by Anthropologist-Initiate
HPS Leslie McQuade Griffin
The difference between magick and mysticism is clear, as they have two completely different methodologies to achieve the same goal.
Mysticism involves emptying one’s self and asking for a hand up. Magick pulls one up by one’s own bootstraps, transforming through hard work. Now how would YOU like to say you entered the next life?
This is not a matter of pride, but rather a matter of inclination. Some people are naturally inclined towards a mystical path and others toward the Magical one. You see successful vegetarians just as often as you see successful non-vegetarians. I am most certainly NOT saying that one is better than the other. These are simply two among several ways of achieving immortality.
Christianity has taken the Egyptian symbols and attempted to claim them for their own. How peculiar. When studying geology, I was taught that what comes first in time is oldest. It is so simple and true that the same ideas are transferred to archaeology and to history. It forms the basis of modern patent law. If something came first, it is older than what comes after. Why, if there is the imago of a goddess breastfeeding a child on her lap, do the Christians call Mary a Holy Mother, but call Isis, who is older and shown in the same manner, a Pagan idol? This is the Christian attempt to coopt Egyptian symbols and claim for their own. How can it be more clear?
And the Egyptians did not have a monopoly of the use of this image. Women have been breastfeeding infants since before we were human. One look at a mother gorilla or chimpanzee should sufficiently evidence that. Divine motherhood is a human archetype, and not the exclusive providence of ANY faith, but most certainly a Pagan symbol long before a Christian one. Those that claim otherwise can only be described as Historical Revisionists.
Already, in the 1533 translation of The Golden Ass, we find a confusion between Magick and Mysticism.
In the middle of the second paragraph of the third chapter we read:
“Verily shee is a Magitian, which hath power to rule the heavens, to bringe downe the sky, to beare up the earth, to turne the waters into hills and the hills into running waters, to lift up the terrestrial spirits into the aire, and to pull the gods out of the heavens, to extinguish the planets, and to lighten the deepe darknesse of hell. Then sayd I unto Socrates, Leave off this high and mysticall kinde of talke, and tell the matter in a more plaine and simple fashion. “
She is clearly described as a Magitian (sic.), and yet rather than say “Leave off this hight and magickal kinde of talke”, the respondent conflates magic and mysticism by calling it “mysticall kinde of talke”. To make the matter more clear, it is as if one person is telling the story of a baseball player, but the person listening to the story says he isn’t interested in hearing a story about cricket!
This exact type of conflation has been going on between adherents of the different schools of immortality for millennia. I find it amazing that in this modern age of science, no anthropologist before me who has been willing to set vainglory aside and swear myself to secrecy for the chance to learn from actual initiates who have carried the initiatic tradition from the Pagan past to our digital present.
As someone trained in the participant observer method of ethnography, and the experimental method in archaeology, I understand how critical personal experience is in the understanding of certain concepts within social science.
It is no accident that 100% of the world’s cultures have concepts such as God, Goddess, afterlife, soul, and transcendence. What is interesting is the number of otherwise good anthropologists who are unwilling to make the conceptual leap from the position of an outside observer to a full participant in the esoteric milieu of the culture being studied.
Many times, those who do are relegated to the derogatory status of “gone native” or “true believer”. Granted this has not always been the case. It only seems to be the case when people are studying Magick and Witchcraft.
Anthropological journals are teeming with stories about the mystical traditions like Hinduism, Buddhism, et cetera. The people who go native into these mystical traditions are lauded. Go native into a Magickal tradition, which are most usually Pagan and pre-Christian, and the response is completely different.
This is because of the alleged lack of reliable, repeatable, verifiable data. This argument quickly devolves into a chest-bumping contest between who has the oldest or most documents.
In fact, much of the documentation the detractors of Pagan continuance demand is incredibly hypocritical. Do Christians not remember the burning of the library of Alexandria?
The great library of Alexandria contained the best works of Pagan science, Magick, literature, medicine, music and the like. How can we produce documents, which the people who are demanding we produce them know perfectly well that they themselves burned them?
Moreover, the Christian Emperor Jovian, in 364, ordered the entire Library of Antioch to be burned because it had been stocked with the aid of his non-Christian predecessor, Emperor Julian.
Are they not laughing in our faces, O dear Pagan brothers and sisters!
Laughing in our faces that they have convinced us to distrust the spoken word in favor of documents that have systematically been destroyed for centuries.
During the time when we did still have access to people trained in the spoken word, they began a campaign of destruction and torture to shut our mouths forever. Do you realize just how many inquisitions there were?
And how in the world have we come to a time when even respected academics set aside historical fact for political expediency by denying their reality? Lucky the Jews are still with us today with proof of the depraved ends to which some will go to suppress the truths of others. Even today, there are those who actively deny the truth of the Holocaust, or worse still, seek to minimize and downplay the underlying horror such an event represents.
Jews are our closest brothers and sisters as many of the Egyptian initiatic mysteries were translated into their tongue and preserved through the centuries, albeit filtered through their own cultural matrix.
Initiates also hid themselves within Christianity itself, transmuting the ancient Egyptian symbols into versions easily hidden in the symbols and tenants of the new, aggressive faith for re-emergence when the time was both safe and right.
As has been demonstrated by my Italian Pagan informant, Dianus del Bosco Sacro, in his article, “The Great Rite, Hermeticism and the Shamanic-Pagan Tradition of the Sacred Forest of Nemi,” these same initiatic mysteries can be found preserved encoded in divergent symbol systems across centuries, from the frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteries of ancient Pompeii to the symbols of Hermetic alchemy, only to reappear in Leland’s “Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches.” [Fenris Wolf V: Journal for Magical Anthropology, Stockholm 2013]
Today, with the opening of the Alpha Omega’s “Egyptian College of Isis,” the initiatic mysteries of Egypt divest themselves of disguises needed to survive two millennia of Christianity.
Today, the mysteries of the Great Mother Goddess, Isis, step forward from dark places, so shine forth again with long forgotten brilliance.
Today, Isis, Lady of Magick and Goddess of 10,000 names, reclaims her rightful throne as Queen of Heaven.
High Priestess Leslie McQuade Griffin
Egyptian College of Isis
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Rosicrucian Order of Alpha Omega
Click HERE to explore our Outer Order, undergraduate level Magical training program, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn!
Alpha Omega
Because we make Magicians!
Friday, March 22, 2013
An Interfaith Pow Wow of Earth-Based Traditions?
by Golden Dawn Imperator
David Griffin
Live! from Diné Bikéyah
This week, my wife Leslie and I are finishing the Arizona leg of the 2013 Golden Dawn World Tour. You can read about the Golden Dawn World Tour HERE. In Arizona, we brought traditional Golden Dawn initiation and "Ritual Magick 101" instruction to aspiring Magicians from around the Salt River Valley surrounding Phoenix.
Leslie and I were not about to leave Arizona without paying proper respects to the Hopi and Diné peoples on Hopi land and the Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah). As practitioners of a Pagan, Earth-based Magick and tradition, Leslie and I have admiration and deep respect for the traditional ways of Native Americans as we do for all Earth-based traditions and religions.
Young Diné Fancy Dancer
Regular readers of the Golden Dawn blog may recall our report from our earlier visit to the Diné people last Summer at the Inter-Tribal Pow Wow they hosted in Bluff, Utah. You can read about the experiences we had at this awe inspiring and spiritually uplifting inter-tribal gathering of Native American peoples HERE.
PowWow Navajo Nation Fair 2012
While visiting Hopi lands and Diné Bikéyah, Leslie and I have been meeting with old friends and discussing the possibility of arranging an interfaith gathering of practitioners of Earth-based traditions from around the world.
We have discussed this idea with practitioners of several Native American ways, as well as several Pagan traditions. So far, we have encountered a general openness to the idea of greater dialogue between Earth-based faiths, yet only cautious optimism about the feasibility of such an interfaith gathering.
Leslie and I are therefore taking a leap into the void - in the humble aspiration we might help make this dream become manifest reality, by
- Setting a concrete date, and by
- Offering the land surrounding Isis Mother Temple of the Alpha Omega as a possible venue for such a gathering.
We believe 2016 may be a realistic time frame to organize such a gathering, so we are beginning now to send forth cautious feelers towards manifesting an interfaith gathering of Earth-based traditions.
This is one small way the Alpha Omega is trying to help the spiritual evolution of human kind.
P.S: You are also cordially invited to attend the International Gathering of Golden Dawn Magicians we are hosting at the Alpha Omega's Isis Mother Temple near Las Vegas, Nevada in just two weeks. There will be Magicians from around the world, good food, initiation, and plenty of freshly released, traditional Golden Dawn Magick from the Secret Chiefs. You can find complete details HERE and HERE.
Yá'át'ééh! -from Diné Bikéyah,
 |
| Leslie and D..J. McQuade Griffin |
Monday, February 18, 2013
The Rites of Isis ...
... Return!
featuring HPS Leslie McQuade Griffin
 |
Alpha Omega presents ...
The Rites of Isis
Returning Spring 2013!
In loving memory of Alpha Omega Elders
HPS and HP Moina and S.L. MacGregor Mathers
Alpha Omega
Because we make Magicians
Click HERE to explore our Outer Order,
undergraduate level Magical training program,
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn!"
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Core Magick: Lesson 1: "Meditation"
featuring Leslie McQuade Griffin
"I'm not a MacGregor - I'm a McQuade!"
INTRODUCTION
Hi! It is nice to meet you. I am Leslie. I think most of you are familiar with my husband, David, who has been encouraging me to share with you some of the magickal gems I picked up my adventures as an archeologiogist and anthropologist.
As an archeologist, I have had the great fortune to work in some pretty amazing places, from the English Heritage, Eartham Pit dig in West Sussex where Homo heidelbergensis was discovered, to the Botai dig in Kazakhstan for the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Natural History, where I was told to cover up the discovery of artifacts made of bone which bore a striking resemblance to screw drivers, which would be astonishing for the time period - to the Chatan-cho dig Okinawa where we were ordered to conceal our discoveries by the Japanese government since they didn't like that we found Koreans rather than Japanese.
I left archeology when the sanctity of scientific data was was repeatedly sacrificed for political expedience. As a scientist, I wanted no part in such hypocricy.
Subsequently, as an anthropologist, I have been more fortunate. I am also an initiated witch of the Sacred Forest of Nemi (del Bosco Sacro) ancient Pagan tradition in Italy, which gives me access to the sort of informants anthropologists dream of. Being married to David Griffin doesn't hurt either, as this gives me access to the Secret Chiefs of the of the Golden Dawn's Third Order through my husband.
I left archeology when the sanctity of scientific data was was repeatedly sacrificed for political expedience. As a scientist, I wanted no part in such hypocricy.
"Take your falsified data and..."
But let me tell you why I am here today ...
As you likely know the Alpha Omega and the Sacred Forest Shamanic Pagan tradition are initiatic, oath-bound traditions, which limits what I can share with you about them. I have, however, managed to amass a great deal of magickal knowledge from other traditions around the world I am completely free to share with you.
You may have heard of the work in the field of Shamanism of anthropologist, Michael J. Harner, who studied many different Shamanic traditions around the world, then attempted to distill the common core underlying all of them. Harner's groundbreaking work has resulted in a growing Neo-Shamanic tradition around the world. He calls this tradition Core Shamanism.
Inspired by Harner's work, I have been gathering magical techniques from many different traditions around the world, some of which I will be sharing with you here in this series on The Golden Dawn Blog. In recognition of my deep and abiding respect for Dr. Harner's work, I call this tradition I am about to share with you, Core Magick.
Core Magick and Core Magickal techniques, as we know them today, represent a huge tool kit; a vast collection of practices, beliefs, spells, deities, experiments, tools, rituals, ideas and ideals. The material I am presenting to you spans both time and space, so don’t be surprised to see eastern practices beside western practices, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming inside Shamanic rituals presented in a Neo-Pagan format.
I have collected, tested and used each and every one of the practices and techniques I share. I give you only the best of the best. The years of scientific experimentation and ethnographic research have resulted in the simplest and most effective way to alter physical reality in ways that match your desires. There are no initiations, no fees, and no “busy work”. This is the cream of what our planet has to offer.
These practices are stripped of all the cultural baggage that prevents many people from considering magic at all. Core Magick represents the synthesis of practices I learned during my travels and research as an anthropologist. Because I worked as an experimental and ethnographic archaeologist, I had numerous opportunities to study the esoteric traditions of the various geographic regions in which I found myself. This is the Core Magickal practice I myself use on a daily basis. Because this information is available for the non-initiate, I have been careful to build in some safety nets to insure that as you work your way through the lessons and experiments, you don’t accidentally “blow up your lab”.
I have taken great pains to remember the source of the things I use. This is perhaps the most interesting part of Core Magick, and one of its greatest strengths. As we move closer and closer to a truly global culture, Core Magick represents a way to tap into the power of the magickal traditions of the planet as a whole. Unlike other traditions that take their authority from the geographic region in which their methodology is culturally cloaked. Core Magick removes the cultural assumptions, contstraints and expectations from these powerful magickal practices and puts their methods in plain language, so that it may be grasped easily, understood accurately and practiced effortlessly. Begin living the life you have always wanted. It is time for you to claim your birthright and become a co-creator with DEITY.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
In my experience, Core Magick is in many ways most similar to chemistry. In chemistry, you must be exact in your measurements, your timing, in every detail of how the experiment is performed. Core Magick is much the same. In order to have repeatable results, you must have repeatable actions. Be attentive to what you are THINKING most of all as you begin working Core Magick.
I will be teaching you the same way I learned, although you won’t have the same opportunities I had, simply as a function of time and location. If you don’t already, I advise you to, take a moment now and find a new notebook or journal. It is important that you keep a journal of not only your daily Core Magickal practices and results, but also what you read, odd things you notice, inexplicable feelings that may bubble to the surface. This is a watershed moment. You are moving from a life in which things happen to you, to one in which you make things happen. Through careful study of your Core Magickal journal, your research notes as it were, you can easily see what works for you and what does not. You will also be able to track the success or failure of your spells/experiments.
Everything you will learn, you learn in layers, like an onion. Just like you first learned in kindegarten that Columbus discovered America, only to be told it was Vespucci in high school, so will you learn Core Magick. Skipping steps will lead to an incomplete understanding of the material. You must you take the time to fully digest and understand the “vocabulary” and methodology of Core Magick in order to do it well, so remember the age-old saying:
”The ox is slow, but the Earth is patient.”
THE FIRST ASSIGNMENT
The first thing I want you write in your Core Magickal Journal is an essay. In the essay, include answers to the following questions, in whatever order feels most natural to you.
1. Why do you want to learn Core Magick? What will you see in your life that will show you your Magick is working?
2. What things are you already doing that you consider to be magickal?
3. Do you believe in God/dess? How does this belief effect your decisions?
4. What are your favorite subjects or activities? What types of things are you not good at or interested in?
5. Are you right or left handed?
6. What is your birth information? [Date, time, location] Ask your mother to tell you the story of the day you were born. Be sure to write down what she says, and ask her to clarify any details.
Write as much as you think is necessary to answer the questions. Include extra information if it seemsrelevant. You may even want to break up these six questions into separate, shorter essays.
I am, with these questions, asking you teach yourself who you ARE. No one will see these essays. Your Core Magickal Journal is solely for your use. In order for you to make this world what you want it to be, you must understand who you are. My perspective as an archaeologist has taught me that it is only through a thourough understanding who you are that you can become the best of who you want to be.
THE FIRST PRACTICE
We will begin with meditation. Whether you meditate now or not, I want you to use the following method. This is not simply capriciousness on my part. If a meditation is successful, there should be PHYSICAL sensations, and real, tangible, repeatable results. The following is what I have found to be the simplest, fastest and most effective way to reach very deep states of meditation in a short amount of time.
1. Do some sort of physical exercise immediately before you begin. It can be anything from Yoga to Boxing. You want your heart to be beating fast, to be breathing hard, and just a little sweaty when you sit down to meditate. The pace of your breathing is VERY important.
2. Sit COMFORTABLY facing a clean, empty, undecorated, white (or other pale color) wall.
3. Sit with the base of your spine supported on a cushion to help keep your spine straight.
4. Stick out your chest, and tuck in your chin just a bit. This will take the last remaining curves out of your spine. It is important to keep your spine STRAIGHT.
5. You can look either at the floor in front of you, or at the wall. The important thing here is to keep your eyes open, and that they are slightly crossed (like when you try to look at the end of your nose).
6. Other than blinking your eyes, and the paced rise and fall of your chest and stomach, you should endeavor to remain motionless. If your leg falls asleep, ignore it. If you itch, put your attention back on your glabella or your breathing. Your body intends to work against you, so ignore it as if it were just another street vendor, barking for your attention.
7. Put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth, and no matter how badly you may itch, DO NOT SCRATCH. Do not scratch, do not move. Be VERY strict with youself on this one. The itching sensation is a chakra point opening. Most people are familiar with the seven basic chakra points. These points are the same in every culture. When the point is open, it feels like a tingling, or an itching, coolness or tickling. To induce this feeling, take a single hair and gently draw a circle in the center of your forehead, on the glabella, or a little above it.
8. As you breathe, breathe also through your glabella. Understand that your glabella is very similar to the blowhole of a whale or dolphin. To accomplish this, as you inhale, become aware of cool air rushing into and out of your glabella, just as you feel the air moving through your nose and lungs.
9. Make sure that when you feel your breathing start to slow, or get shallow, you pick up the pace. By now your heart rate should be slowing down, and also your breath rate. It is important however, to keep breathing deep and full. You are going to hyper oxygenate your blood. This will release certain chemicals into your blood that will make it possible for you to reach deeper states of meditation.
10. As you are concentrating on all these things, feel yourself getting lighter and lighter, floating up out of your body. Remember, your body has an autopilot function. It’s called sleep. You can trust your body to take care of itself while you “go out and have a look”.
11. Pass through the roof, into the sky, through the clouds, through the atmosphere into space. Fly past the moon, out towards the stars.
Travel as far as you like and stay as long as you like. Rather than set a specific amount of time for meditation, we are setting a goal. I want you to be able to see all the stars in the blackness of the universe with your eyes open and pointed at the wall or floor.
This method is a combination of things I learned in Kundalini Yoga, Zen Walking Meditation, Rolfing and Shamanic Journeying.
Plan on spending at least 15 minutes for exercise, and 15 minutes for meditation for your first experiment. Gradually increase the time for both in increments of 1:1; i.e. for each minute of exercise, do a minute of meditation. If you want to do more the first time, that is fine, but what I’m looking for in this practice exercise are the following things:
1. Consistency – Do it EVERY DAY for one lunar cycle. This experiment should be repeatedly tested, because science is above all else a method of predicting what comes next. If you do the same methods twice and get the same results twice, you have shown something interesting. Do it 20 or 30 times, and you have really learned a powerful technique for self-transformation. You need only dedicate 28 days to this experiment after which you may choose to either continue (which I HIGHLY recommend) or not. Remember, the benefits of meditation are cumulative, like physical exercise.
2. Set and Setting – Where do you meditate? Do you use incense or candles? How do you feel? Before you begin were you distracted, tired, happy, in a hurry, etc.?
3. Results – Can you get out of the Earth’s atmosphere into space? Can you feel your glabella? Can you breathe with your glabella? Do you feel like you are floating? Are you able to ignore your Meatsuit (physical body)? Compare this meditation to others you have had in the past. What seems different about this method? What happened during the meditation that could be improved upon?
4. Documentation – Each meditation is a scientific experiment. Use the following form for Documenting the Results of your Procedure and Consistency with this Practice.
Meditation Documentation (example)
Date: 2012 Apr 20 Tue 9pm
Practice: DAILY MEDITATION
Goal: To be able to meditate anywhere, anytime.
Set and Setting: Today I decided to meditate outside. I sat in a couple of spots to find the best view of the sky, with no mountains or power lines in the way. I also looked around to be sure no one would interrupt me. I didn’t bring any incense, because the air here smells so good. I did bring a blanket, pillow and bug spray. I also brought food and water for afterwards. I had a hassle getting out of the house, because my roommate thinks it’s dangerous to meditate outside in the dark.
Procedure: I did my usual routine, but a little faster today, since it now takes more to get my breathing faster. I also did 25 bodyweight squats and 10 pushups. Then, I lay down, covered up (because it’s cold), put my tongue up and started.
Results: It was a difficult meditation. I found my mind wandering with lots of thoughts. So I told each thought, as it came up, “Thank you for reminding me of that. I will get to it just as soon as I am finished.” My Kundalini Yoga Guru Paranjothiar taught me that trick. Once each thought had been given some love and dismissed, I was able to go deeply into the stars, turn around and see the Earth. It seemed so small and fragile. I opened my heart and poured love over the whole planet. Then I heard a car come up the road, and it jarred me out of meditation. I had been there for 40 minutes already, so I packed up and walked back to the house.
Next Time: I will go a little further away from the road. I will leave the food, because I think it attracted bugs. I will also bring my back-jack, because lying down made it hard to stay awake. Also, I couldn’t find my usual internal “landing spot” at the beginning of my meditation, probably because of the new location.
Other: I really need to get better at letting outside distractions go. I think a lot of that has to do with feeling slightly self-conscious about meditating outside my usual spot in the house. It is important for me to let go both of my self-consciousness, and of my attachment to my usual place of meditation.
Meditation Documentation
Date:
Practice:
Goal:
Set and Setting:
Procedure:
Results:
Next Time:
Other:
THE FIRST READING LIST
In each reading list I provide you, there will be more than you can read. Choose what looks interesting to you. As you read, write notes in your journal. Your notes might include things like:
· Information you think is important to remember for later
· Quotes you want to remember
· Your opinions about what you are reading
· Questions you would like to ask me
I expect you to pick at least one and finish as much as you can before the next full moon. In fact, the previous work is best completed in one lunar month. So, have a look at what the moon phase is right now. Repeat the meditation experiment every day for one lunar cycle. Be consistent. This is part of what makes meditation hard for most people. Meditation is a way of engendering the self with self-trust. You trust in your decisions and stick by them, like your decision to meditate every day. You trust your body to take care of itself while you while you are meditating.
All the books I recommend are available for free at the links I have provided for you.
SUGGESTED READING LIST
The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeous Golas
Real Magic by Issaic Bonewits
The Power of the Witch by Laurie Cabot
The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner
A Dictionary of Symbols by J. E. Cirlot
The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot
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