Loki Bound

Loki BoundIn my last article I proposed to discuss an expression of Loki which tries to avoid the pitfall of declaring to be either for or against this complex and provocative figure. Unfortunately this will entail a bit of self-promotion on my part, because I intend to present and discuss the lyrics to a musical release called Loki Bound, performed by Greed & Rapacity, a band of which I am one half.

Loki Bound is a one-song 30-minute funeral doom metal descent into Loki’s stream of consciousness during his imprisonment by the Aesir, the primary Norse pantheon, for misdeeds real and imagined. He lies chained by his son’s intestines to a deeply buried boulder, while a serpent drips venom upon him. His loyal wife, Sigyn, catches the poison in a cup, but when she goes to empty the cup, the poison falls on Loki’s skin. His agonized convulsions are the root of earthquakes, and it is fair to say that Loki is a deity of psychological tectonics.

Loki Bound is not easy listening. Yet the project was born out of a spirit of empathy – not, it must be said, sympathy. Empathy.

Our point of departure is some clinical advice of Jung’s: that the therapist must accept the client’s experience and perspective without either agreeing or disagreeing. To either agree or disagree out of hand would be to do violence to the client and their struggles. This idea – of holding to the discomfort of not reaching for a settled judgment – is tremendously powerful. It releases blockages and opens new ways out of the clutches of darkness.

In one sense, then, Loki Bound is a kind of psychotherapy for Loki as a cultural icon. An abreaction undergone on his behalf by musical means. We wanted to “save the phenomenon,” as Edmund Husserl might say: not to present it with any kind of slant or interpretation, but rather to hold it out as raw as we possibly could. We wanted to be free to let the being of Loki be itself, sing for itself.

Naturally, it is impossible to succeed completely. Yet I think we have captured something of a truth of the fragmentary mythological narrative of Loki’s life (a life which concludes in his fighting against the gods at Ragnarǫk).

The lyrics began with a seed that my Greed & Rapacity co-conspirator, D. Nahum, provided. Then one night I received a strange visitation and the text was written less than me than by a violently inspired mood. I hesitate to say that it came from Loki himself, but I do feel it was born of the dynamic tension of standing in acceptance without judgment of good or bad; of facing the pleasant and the repellent together.

Recording the vocals for the piece was uncanny. We found ourselves shocked by the unearthly cadences and inflections that emerged – animalistic, desperate, despairing, inhuman. The creative process called on something deep and old and savagely articulate.

Some of the musical elements bear comment. Passages of chanting recall the impassioned invocations of Sufi singers. Oppressive, down-tuned guitars loom like the weight of Loki’s subterranean prison. The rhythm section lurches and clatters sickeningly, evoking Sigyn’s wavering hand as she holds up the bowl that wards Loki from the drip of the snake’s poison.

Lyrics and music are ultimately an insuperable unity, but this does not mean that exploring one or the other in isolation is a wasted gesture. Here, then, are the lyrics to Loki Bound, which have not hitherto been published.

Loki Bound

Lyrics by Greed & Rapacity

I spit on your lies
I spit on your cowardice
Your grief, your greed, your terror
Your cruel laughter.
I spit on your hubris
I spit on your hate
I spit on your spite
And your perverse lusts

Hypocrites all
In shining towers
Your spirits are halls of mirrors
That dissolve into night.
Unbearable to you
The sight of I
That wears on my skin
As a shallow veil
What runs to the pits of your souls

So condemn me as thou wouldst.
Condemn me for my sins
Condemn me for my virtues
Condemn me from sloth
And whimsy
And pain
And daub yourselves in the glory
Of your brittle victory

For I will have my revenge
My revenge: knowing that you wait
You wait for the bleak day
On the Shining Field
When all your knowledge
All your might
All your insight
Will be run into dust.
Will be finally crushed.
By me and mine
By mine and me
By you and I

My revenge: knowing that you wait.
You lie awake at night
And the venom that drips
And drips
And drips
Into the cup that my trembling beloved sustains
Drips as loud in your ears as it does in mine –
As loud as it does in mine
Do you understand?

This poison will not quench my thirst
These bonds will not break my strength
These shadows will not rot my rage
For this nightmare too must end.
Must end in the dawn of your drought
Your forgetfulness
Your long dark misery.

Just you and the snake.

Drip
(Wait, wincing, for the next to fall)
Drip
(Wait, wincing, for the next to fall)
Drip
(Wait, wincing, for the next to fall)

At total leisure to reflect on every ill deed
Every rash oath
Every lie
Every theft
Every barb
That I have ever cast
That has ever been cast at my word
That saw me be cast from the light
Even though it was done at your behest –

Because it was done at your behest.

This will be your fate!
To gaze into yourselves
As I have gazed into myself.
Driven mad with terror
Driven made with rage
Driven mad by the awful dark
And the slithering drip of venomous pain.
Driven beyond all sense
Into all-destructive love
For the inferno and its brutality

Do you understand?
Can you understand?
How I could long to quench
All life in the world in scorched death?
You made me to be this thing I am:
Your servant, the seething fraud
The agent of your secret rage.
Yet when you tired of your slave
You abandoned me to darkness:
Bound in the guts of my son
My wife enslaved by her love

You gave me up
To all that lurks beneath the earth
And bound me in the choking gloom
Of interminable doom

Do you understand?
All that is light in the world is saved by
All that is dark
And I was the agent of darkness that served the light

No more! Now the only light will be
The stinking blaze of your rancid flesh
As you fall to your knees before the hosts
Of my implacable reckoning

With such thoughts I comfort myself.
As I lose my mind in this dark cave
Covered in shame, loss, and gloom
Will broken and reforged anew:

With fury
And righteous disgust
With fury
And righteous disgust
With fury
And righteous disgust
With fury
And righteous disgust

There are several themes I would like to touch on in these lyrics. Firstly, the ambiguous sense of identification between Loki and the Aesir, against whom the poem’s bile is directed. “This will be your fate! / To gaze into yourselves / As I have gazed into myself…/Driven mad by the awful dark / And the slithering drip of venomous pain.”

Here we see Loki projecting his own grim self-reflection in captivity onto the Aesir, as though somehow it is they who will one day endure such suffering. Yet we know they do not; Ragnarǫk seems to be an altogether more brief and dramatic affair.

This perhaps is Loki’s effect (I deliberately do not say his purpose): to provoke self-reflection. Where there is disruption the tranquilizing familiarity of daily life is broken; new thought and life can emerge. Loki threatens those who are tight-fisted; it is worth remembering that the old Heathens regarded generosity as the highest virtue.

This is something for each of us to consider. I do not think it accidental that in this imagery Loki identifies with the Aesir even after enmity erupts between he and they.

We see Loki’s self-righteous fury in these lyrics. He feels himself the victim of injustice; in his own mind called to play a particular and necessary role as fomenter of change, then punished when he becomes too much to bear.

At one level, we can of course regard his attitude with distaste; it is hardly that of a person willing to take responsibility for their actions. At another level, however, he is holding up a mirror. I wonder if Loki’s detractors might not be guilty of attacking him for the sin of resembling their own unacknowledged flaws.

Loki is the tragic figure par excellence, both abhorrent and sympathetic. He represents a living fault line of belief, and like Oedipus he therefore offers us nearly unparalleled opportunities for remembering our limits, our mortality, and our need to keep our feet on the ground.

As such, I do not believe there is any fruit to be had in partisan wrangling over Loki’s significance and worth as either a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” As soon as we set down a value, a judgment, we have thrown away his value as a teacher, as a mirror. We cease to be present to ourselves and to our lives. We deaden a little part of ourselves. Loki is a wonderful teacher, as much because of his terrible flaws and failures as because of his strange gifts.

It seems that the old Heathens might have had a tolerance for ambiguity – which is to say, for real life – that has largely been lost in modernity. We are slaves to the binary. The binary is not a new invention, but it is no longer tempered by the grounding thought of having to grow one’s own food, weave one’s own shirt, decorate one’s own tools.

There are fewer havens to offer us shelter from the binary’s excesses. We have to set ourselves at odds with convenient and received thinking to find such harbors of the spirit. In this respect, perhaps Loki can assume a new and healing significance that he might not have held in archaic times. The Faustian pact might be far more nuanced, perhaps even beautiful, than Goethe imagined.

Greed and Rapacity has only performed Loki Bound live once, but that was probably enough. The rhythmic complexity of some passages – though deceptively minimalist to a casual listen – are in themselves a very difficult undertaking. But more to the point, the performance proved a catalyst for necessary unearthing of pain, conflict, and strife. If this process was very painful, it was also very much a good thing, though at first it seemed like Ragnarǫk.

In Norse mythology, Ragnarǫk paves the way for a renaissance of the world, of the gods, and of humanity. It clears a ground for a shining new day. And Loki is a central agent of this regenerative drama. Every ending is a beginning, and it is churlish and futile to hate the harbingers of the going-under. For as Nietzsche so joyously declared, the going-under is the birth-pang of the going-up.

All of these considerations haunt Loki Bound in one fashion or another. Yet I will not pretend that it was not also born of a maniacal and even malicious desire to make difficult, cathartic, and abrasive music. Even perhaps to hurt the listener, or frighten them. For Loki also teaches that, as with all things, the destructive urge is a phenomenon that must be saved.

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Dreaming into Valhalla

I had a dream last night that a red-bearded former friend, who has a reputation for destroying his relationships through paranoia, contacted me. He told me that he was in touch with a major record label who wanted to re-release the Ein Skopudhr Galdra/Mistsorrow split CD that I did with Dan Nahum and Chris Gaydon (available at  http://einskopudhrgaldra.bandcamp.com/ ).

He said that for this to happen, however, I would need to get permission from the lyricist, but my ex-friend informed me that he and the lyricist had a big falling out, so I would have to contact this person myself, although we’d never met before (how I got to use this person’s lyrics in the first place is a little mysterious, but I think the implication was that my ex-friend had served as the go-between).

I found out the lyricist lived near me, so I walked to his house. I discovered it was in fact a Kung Fu school, and he was the founder and head instructor. The school was housed in a giant, purpose-built long hall atop a very high hill. I had to climb over a wall around it to get in.

At the door I was greeted by the sight of a large room where a class was being held. The teacher was a rather warlike woman who paused to ask me what I wanted. I explained the situation, making it clear that I was a little lost due to the strange circumstances.

I was escorted off into the building, past dormitories where live-in trainees and instructors dwelt. They had a lot of people training in the arts of war. Finally I was led into a throne room – the lyricist-Kung Fu master’s throne room.

And then I woke up.

In my waking state I was perplexed by the suggestion that I had used someone else’s lyrics for my contribution to the Ein Skopudhr Galdra/Mistsorrow split release. Then I remembered that I did borrow some lyrics for that release, and suddenly the imagery of the dream made perfect sense.

For those who know, here are the lyrics that I borrowed:

Veit ek, at ek hekk
vindga meiði á
nætr allar níu,
geiri undaðr
ok gefinn Óðni,
sjalfr sjalfum mér,
á þeim meiði,
er manngi veit
hvers af rótum renn.

Við hleifi mik sældu
né við hornigi;
nýsta ek niðr,
nam ek upp rúnar,
æpandi nam,
fell ek aftr þaðan.

Fimbulljóð níu
nam ek af inum frægja syni
Bölþorns, Bestlu föður,
ok ek drykk of gat
ins dýra mjaðar,
ausinn Óðreri.

Þá nam ek frævask
ok fróðr vera
ok vaxa ok vel hafask,
orð mér af orði
orðs leitaði,
verk mér af verki
verks leitaði.

.-)

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Across the Wild Seas

Infinite SeaOne year ago, almost to the day, I crossed the Pacific Ocean to begin a new life in a different land. shortly before I left my band Ironwood released an album called Storm Over Sea, a sonic exploration of oceanic voyages as a metaphor for psychic transformation. For a song entitled “Will to Live,” I penned the following:

Lonely, lashing through the swell
Blackened sky of seething blight
Driven from forgotten lands
Into the sea’s raging night!

Hail-struck with self-disdain
Need-fire set our lives aflame
Thorn piercing the veil of pain
Longing for new Odal to claim!

Laguz light the way!

Ocean lured us to depart
Fled Alfheim, embraced Midgard
Wove our wyrd to wrathful waves
Praying Logr will ward our path

Sang oaths on bright-shining gold
Honest fearlessness to hold
When at last our fleet finds land
We’ll burn our ships and make our stand!

The significance of these sentiments resonates throughout me as I read over them now. Though they were written years ago, their full meaning has only now come into resolution. And I will embrace the sentiment.

I was born on a day of the year when the walls between worlds are considered thin. And often I have felt like the proverbial changeling, an otherworldly child swapped for a human at birth, ill suited to the dare and challenge of being present in a terrestrial, human world. Being what I am, existence in this world has proved a difficult problem, and if I have had some success in bringing myself into material manifestation it has nevertheless been tempered by much pain and reversal.

The will to be present in the world does not come naturally to me by birth, and too many times I have chosen to avoid the struggles that forge depth of character. Yet I have also striven mightily to reach terms with incarnate life, and it is true that my victories are many. The difficulty remains though: when one is coming from a long way behind, a great slew of advances may nevertheless seem to produce little progress.

I say this not in an attempt to extract undeserved sympathy; I am more than conscious that there are others in the world who have overcome much harder biographies and genealogies than I. No: I say this to express my determination to fulfil the vow of the lyrics of “Will to Live.” For truly those words were a vow, though I did not know it when they were composed.

My first year in this new land has been difficult. Many of the structures I have built around myself to allow myself to function emotionally and spiritually were left behind; yet somehow I expected myself to meet a slew of new challenges without any replacement for those supports, and this absurd expectation caused much gratuitous pain. It is only now that I recognise the extent of my self-inflicted folly. I am fortunate to be loved and known in this new life.

Well: I have burned my ships, like the Tuatha de Danaan on the shores of Ireland. If Ireland is incarnate life, then here I am, declaring myself to be for life itself, to be willing to grasp and reach and risk and dare. There was reason in my decision to throw myself into a new life: to give myself no more opportunities to avoid committing to the fine art of being present, of occupying my life.

For it is true that mind and body are one; and too long have I indulged a schizoid fantasy. I recognise that. If for a year I have tangled myself between acceptance of my path and absurd denial, then my errors and confusions stand redeemed in the perspective that I have been given. The encroaching threat of meaninglessness and bewilderment comes into a new light, and the sense and beauty of my chaos and lostness stands in relief.

So: the formula for a full life. One: acceptance of what is, unconditionally. No more fruitless rage and despair that the world does not gratify my every small desire. No more denial of the self-evident. Two: Lust for life. The willingness to reach out, to dare, to risk, to struggle. To embrace the joy of personal power, to cease to cut myself down in the name of supposed enlightenment. To embrace struggle as the terrain of transformation, not as an impassable foe.

“Riding is in the hall easy,
but very hard for the one who sits
on a powerful horse, over miles of road.”

I call my ancestors, literally and figuratively. I imbibe the infinite concatenation of liquid memory from which I am spun.

777  times the Norns I call.

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Composing Heathenry

I wrestle endlessly with the somewhat related themes of reconstructionism and cultural specificity as they pertain to Heathenry. Tonight some playful (pun unintended but welcome) analogies to music occurred to me. They might help to elucidate my thoughts on both reconstructionism and the Folkish/universalist thing. First I’ll set the scene with some comments about music, but stick with me, even if it seems tangential or obscure at first – I promise to bring my rumination to bear on the field of contemporary Heathen thinking.

As a musician I’m big on knowing theory. I can talk about double harmonic minors, and 13:8 time, and 16th note sweep picking (on a bass, whee!) all day long. And I can effortlessly apply that theory: it isn’t just words or ideas (well, ok, the 16th note bass sweeps do take a bit of effort, but I’m getting there!).

The discipline of all that structure is paradoxically freeing. When I want to do fast, complex music, my hands know what to do because my brain is so well versed. I know intuitively how different tones will combine from my theoretical understanding. I can break down compositions and assemble arrangements with both flair and rapidity. I can store a lot of information about musical structure very simply through the application of underlying rules of harmony or rhythm, which makes learning, performing, and remembering material a lot easier.

I’m far from perfect, and my music theory is very much geared towards practical usage rather than armchair reflection (I’m 100% self-trained). But nonetheless, I think the point is made.

I have even found that, being so deeply grounded in the “rules” of music, I can break them freely. I often find myself doing this with harmonic construction these days. I like the challenge of creating fresh tonal canvasses within the “rules” of conventional scales and chords, but I also find myself freely able to break up recognisable patterns and work atonally. Because I know what the “rules” of music are I can break them in interesting and enjoyable ways.

Occasionally I encounter the view that learning a lot of music theory can be a straightjacket that destroys spontaneity and the creative impulse. I know this does happen sometimes, especially for heavily drilled classical students.

Yet most people I’ve met who claim to avoid learning theory in order to preserve their freedom of expression actually have a rather limited range. They often seem to devolve to the same two or three tricks over and over again, not understanding how to develop their sound. They might be able to “hear” how to give flesh to the bones of their ideas, but lack the skill to embody their creations in a satisfying way.

In the worst cases they resort to “experimentalism” as a substitute for inspiration and ability, hiding behind provocative bungling as though it were a purposeful choice and not an inarticulate flailing.

So my point should be clear: with prudence and an adventurous attitude one can free oneself by submitting to the rigour of musical theory. One needs to avoid the reef of drudging slavery to musical form, and one needs to avoid the seemingly free – but actually inarticulate and blundering – position of being anti-theory.

Well, I see Heathenry in a similar light.

Sure, reconstructionism produces various boffins who shackle themselves to academic minutiae and end up saying the most ridiculous things. On the other hand, without the discipline of historical grounding, people cook up the most half-baked spiritual repast and, not knowing any better, think that they’re somehow creating something wonderful! Yet their efforts lack depth, grit, character (and you see this just as much among “Folkish” Heathens as among Universalists, incidentally).

The better road is to take the adventurousness of the Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis (UPG) brigade (the anti-theory, or anti-reconstruction types), and the rigour of the reconstructionists. In this way, theory can offer a discipline which frees the creative spark to express itself with great subtlety.

For me this manifests as what I generally refer to as Psychological Reconstructionism. For example, to me understanding the worldview of the old Heathens – the importance of wyrd, time, interconnection, sacredness, hospitality, gift-giving, and reciprocity – stands over and above particular debates about exactly what clothes were worn when or the like.

And this attitude frees me to recognise the similarities between Heathenry and other traditions, even while simultaneously preserving a feel for the uniqueness of the Heathen traditions (and others). Just as music is a universal language spoken in an infinite range of nuances – so too culture. Hence, for example, when I see in Odin the archetype of (among others) the Wounded Healer, I can recognise how this connects him to many other cultures and traditions, even though I can still celebrate the manner in which he is a unique manifestation of that meme.

As a musician I’ve played in prog rock bands, death metal bands, world music outfits, experimental groups, folk ensembles, and bands that have fused various of the aforementioned influences. I’ve touched on genres as varied as black metal, hip hop, and ‘live’ dance music. I’ve played with blast beating metal drummers from hell, African percussionists, tabla masters, Middle Eastern percussionists, you name it (in some cases, I’ve played with people who’ve had mastery of several of these domains!). In all of these configurations, I’ve used the same language to find my way, bringing my particular idiom (to borrow from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail) to bear in each case.

And I have the same attitude with culture. I bring my own spiritual idiom to the world, but I can freely interface with kindred spirits across all sorts of literal and figurative borders. My deep sense of specific identity – my interest in reconstructionism and ancestor worship – informs my spirit in ways that also enable me to interface with the Other, until I come to appreciate the ways in which seemingly hard barriers are always more porous and fascinating than first shallow glances might suggest.

Hence I am a reconstructionist who loves UPG; and I am a staunch ancestor worshipper and Europhile who embraces cross-cultural exchange and intermingling at the same time. Because to me, the latter is part of the heritage I glean from the former. Just as I am a theory-based musician who thinks nothing of violating every harmonic law in the book if it creates the effect I want (and indeed, I use my knowledge of the ‘rules’ of music and spirituality to break themselves in creative and appealing ways).

The fundamental question is this: are the forms of tradition (be it musical or spiritual or whatever) there to serve us, or are we to serve them? Or is it a bit of both? If we respect them we recognise that they were born from the inspiration of our predecessors, and hence to truly be “reconstructionist” (which, I should mention, is NOT at all necessarily synonymous with being Folkish or Universalist or any other -ism, as these comments on the whole imply) one might have to break the rules of reconstructionism now and again.

In my personal microcosmos Elric and Odin and alchemical Mercury are deeply related (yet naturally distinct); and for me the profound obsession with memory in Heathenry seems uncannily like the same obsession in Sufism (yet I at least cannot seem to effect a straightforward, simple fusion of the two). Things can be different yet the same; in fact this is what the symbol of Yggdrasill is all about: reminding us of the simultaneous oneness and difference of all things, and reminding us of the necessary interdependence that binds the archetypes of  isolation and dissolution.

Blur the lines and we see things as they are; blur the lines and we begin to shed abstraction and embrace the endless mystery from which our world is woven. The closer you examine any boundary, the less distinct it becomes – that might not make it less real, but it forces us to recognise that our specific, localised uniqueness is not dependent on rigid separation, nor necessarily threatened by absence of the same.

What counts is our integrity and our vulnerable imagination. Rigidly clinging to rules about either isolated specificity or generalised universality amounts to underutilising our human faculties and potential. As always, George Orwell had it right to blame the ills of the world on the gramophone mind and not on the particular records being played at any given time.

For like it or not, we are all hedgewalkers like Odin (another reason to call him Allfather), whether it comes to musical expression or spiritual inspiration. The point of being strict…is so that we can become free of all restriction.

All only in my humble, internally contradictory, and frighteningly arbitrary opinion, of course.

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Primordial Reflections

I’ve been listening to Irish metal band Primordial today. Wow, those guys never cease to blow me away with their atmosphere and seething passion. Vocalist A. A. Nemtheanga has more than his fair share of imbas, that’s for sure.

Their last few albums have partly grappled with the question of identity from a European perspective – their combination of Heathen and Pagan spiritual influences and their sense of history as coming from Ireland gives them a unique perspective.

Nemtheanga is given to dark, apocalyptic vision of worlds crumbling these days, and in the face of the dark portraits his lyrics paint, the grandeur of the music really ignites. There is a truly powerful sense of resolution in this music, and part of that comes from a notion of identity as European, one which Primordial articulates with subtlety, complexity, and little in the way of self-righteousness or arrogance, which is rather welcome for a change!

I am often quite critical of the use of Heathenry simply as a source of solid sense of identity, because it seems to stem from weakness or fear, and because ironically it often seems to impair curiosity and reverence for history and tradition. Yet I feel I need to balance the scales a little, and reflect on my own limitations.

Because you see I cannot imagine the men of Primordial giving into their fear for anything or anyone. The strength that flows through their music flows precisely through a powerful sense of self-possession, of being rooted in history and myth. And part of that strength is tied up in “identity politics” if you want to call it that, yet the way that Primordial do it seems like a really positive force, neither brittle nor shallow.

This gets me pondering whether there isn’t more to this whole “well, I just am Heathen” (and therefore insolubly worthwhile regardless of any evidence there may be to the contrary) attitude that I often see.

Sure, it can make people reductionist in their sense of self, amputating or ignoring their full range of character and their full ability to perceive the world around them. But Primordial seem to demonstrate that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Maybe, then, the more shallow and rigid applications of identity politics in Heathenry are aiming at a more valid and valuable goal. Perhaps I owe those that I find irritating in this regard a little more respect – perhaps, as fallibly as all humans, they are nevertheless driving at something which could be both positive and healing.

What leads me to reflect on this further is my sense that I struggle greatly to stay connected to my own spiritual grounding. I am someone that needs to drink from the well of memory on a regular basis, but I often avoid doing it. I am someone who carries around a lot of self-critical impulses (don’t we all, though?), and while in some respects this is helpful, it is often gratuitously hurtful.

So I find myself wondering – would someone who seems as spiritually self-assured as A. A. Nemtheanga put himself down in his own mind? Would he have those bastard voices that most of us carry around (which I certainly do), which love to stick hot pokers into our brains at the least provocation? I just can’t imagine he does.

Of course the flip side of total self-assurance is the temptation to blame everything on everyone else, and I’ve recently had some very miserable experiences with someone I’ve been very close to but who works in this way. Well I certainly don’t want to be projecting my shadow onto the Other, to paraphrase good old Jung, but nonetheless a bit less gratuitous self assault and a bit more default self-assurance would be nice.

These reflections are all relative of course. In many domains I do feel completely capable and self assured. I’m also known to have a poker face under pressure, never letting on that I’m finding a challenge hard until after it is beaten. The problem is more to do with what goes on in my head. I don’t want to live a life where I am grinding myself down. Because over time that can affect one’s freedom to be and do in the world.

So perhaps what I am circulating around is the possibility that I tend to dismiss the “I want an identity” motivation for being Heathen precisely because it offers something I need. And perhaps I am too quick to dismiss this motivation as brittle, aggressive, and shallow: Primordial seem to be showing that a deeper form of it is possible.

It is pretty absurd that someone who has invested so much of their life into spiritual pursuits and personal growth (and admittedly out of brutal necessity) nevertheless has a habit of refusing the nourishment offered by the divine and then crying about starving to death.

That reminds me, actually, of one of my favourite poems by Rumi. It’s about depression – disconnection from God, the divine in all things. There’s a bit where it says something like: “you decline to enter the open door of the road house; later you curse the hardship of the road.”

Part of the reason I am hesitant to be a “loud and proud” – or perhaps more in my style, “silent but resolute” – Heathen is because I dislike the way that many Heathens present their Heathenry, and to be honest I’m wary of being painted in the same colours. But then again, Heathenry is what we make of it, so maybe I should be just being myself under that banner so that I can ensure that the definition of “Heathen” is sufficiently wide to include me.

I’m not really sure how any of this applies in daily life. And I know that when I sing a sense of connection and assurance certainly flows through me – perhaps Primordial are at their best in performance, and like the rest of us as people are not equal to the art that the divine inspires them to create.

But imagine living every moment of one’s life with the sense of confidence and spirit that can come in moments of rapturous possession while singing? Imagine that power that flows through the body just always being there?

One thing is for sure, this ideal would require the ability to separate one’s self-worth from the world around. The Daoists say we should worship the 10,000 Things, the infinite gods, but not get too attached, and there’s wisdom in this being in the world but also having a touch of reserve, or more specifically, of circumspection.

This is also the Jungian Way – the path to individuation, to having achieved one’s own Lapis, the unchanging, perfected core that dwells eternally amid the chaos of the world.

Well I want my own philosopher’s stone. I invoke Fire and Water here and now and every time anyone reads this to flood and inflame my life! It is time to dismantle my sordid affair with amnesia and start afresh with memory.

Well and good, these metaphors. I need reminders. The magic of memento mori. Let these words be one such. Let there be many more.

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Hallucination is the truth our graves are dug with

The Price Of Existence Is Eternal Warfare

“COIL is a hidden universal. A code. A key for which the WHOLE does not exist. Is NONEXISTENT, in silence and secrecy. A spell. A spiral. A serpent’s SHt round a female cycle. A whirlwind. A double helix. DNA. Electricity and elementals. Atonal noise, and brutal poetry.

COIL is amorphous. Luminous and constant change. Inbuilt obSOLescence. Inbuilt Disobedience. A vehicle for obsessions. Dreamcycles in perpetual motion. We are cutthroats. Infantile. Immaculately Conceived. Dis-eased. The Virus is Khaos. The cure is Delirium.

COIL are Archangels of KHAOS. The price we pay for existence is eternal Warfare. There is a hidden coil of strength, dormant beneath the sediment of convention. Dreams lead us under the surface, over the edge, to the Delerium state. UNCHAINED. Past impositions and false universals. Reassembling into OUR order.

COIL. Who has the nerve to dream, create and kill, while the whole moves every part stands still. Our rationale is the irrationAL. Hallucination is the truth our graves are dug with. COIL is compulsion. URGE and construction. Dead letters fall from our shedding skins. Kabbala and KHAOS. Thanatos and Thelema. Archangels and Antichrists. Open and Close. Truth and Deliberation. Traps and Disorientation.

Coil exist between Here and Here. We are Janus Headed. Plural. Out of time. Out of place. Out of Spite. An antidote for when people become poisons.

COIL know how to destroy Angels. How to paralyse. Imagine the world in a bottle. We take the bottle, smash it, and open your throat with it. I warn you we are Murderous. We massacre the logical revolts. We know everything! We know one thing only. Absolute existence, absolute motion, absolute direction, absolute Truth. NOW, HERE, US.

‘Not Knowing What Is And Is Not
Knowing, I Knew Not’ (Hassan i Sabbah)” Jhonn Balance, Coil Manifesto, 1983

Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson is dead. He died on November 25th in Bangok whilst asleep. From one dream to another dream. He moved to Thailand after Jhonn Balance died in November 13th 2004. I wrote my article about Coil, in honour of Jhonn Balance, a year ago. Who would have thought that one year later I need to write about the passing of Sleazy, “second part” of Coil. He was only 55 years old. I remember his words during our talk in Berlin nearly five years ago: “You have to create your own current,” instead of following anyone else. To this principle I adhere. This is what Chaos Heathenry is all about to me. To me the work of Coil has been very important in my late teenager years / early twenties. Coil formed a body of materials embodying RUNA to my young mind, and it was one of my first tools for unraveling the mysteries.

Death knows, death shows, death goes…

Sleazy, a friend of William S. Burroughs, participated in the creation of Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and Coil. All unbelievable, counter-cultural entities in their own right. He made music videos for Nine Inch Nails, Sepultura, Ministry, Rollins Band, Rage Against The Machine, Paul McCartney, Erasure asf. He inspired musicians like Trent Reznor and Marlyn Manson, all Industrial bands you know and was a Magician of the Synthesizer.

His Soul lives on in his music. And whatever “bardo” he is moving through right now – drifting, dreaming, diving, dancing, dripping, falling, then rising again, attracted by strange lights and an unearthly red -, I say: “Be not afraid: it’s all your karma projected outside of you. There is nothing to fear and nothing to cling to. All this will pass. The Benediction of the All-Begetter, All-Devourer be upon thee.”

Sleazy was an animist and Buddhist. Not all of him died. It was time to leave this mortal coil and to move on…

Here a few of his revelations for you:

Coil “Cold Cell”

Coil “Amber Rain”

Coil “Fire of the Mind”

Coil “Backwards”

Coil “I Don’t Get It”

Coil “Teenage Lightning”

Coil “The Dreamer Is Still Aslepp”

Coil “Batwings (A Limnal Hymn)”, Part 1

Coil “Batwings (A Limnal Hymn)”, Part 2

Peter Christopherson “In My Head A Crystal Sphere Of Heavy Fluid”

The Threshold HouseBoys Choir “Form Grows Rampant” (Initiation of boys in trance in Thailand)

SoiSong “Dtorumi”

This Immortal Coil “Ostia” (Coil cover)

Interview with Sleazy, Part I

Interview with Sleazy, Part II

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More Song Magic

My last article on Galdor Without Runes brought to mind a number of magical experiences I have had that have involved singing and, as a further inducement to my reader to explore the magical art form of singing, I have decided to share a few of these experiences.

1) Galdor Made Me Into Road Runner

One day some years ago I was attempting to make my way to a friend’s home. It was a hot summer’s day and the train system had broken down, leaving me in the unenviable position of having to walk from Central Station to Stanmore (Sydney-siders will know what that means; the distance involved is about five kilometres). Oh, and I had something like twenty minutes to get there in time.

Despite the fact that normally I might have just called and cancelled, I felt it important at the time to connect with my friend, who had experienced a recent break up. One of my Odinnic poems came unbidden to my lips as I steeled myself to run the distance, knowing that I certainly was not fit enough to make the distance in the time available, particularly since I had a backpack with me.

As I began to chant the poem over and over, its rhythm taking a hold of me, I began to be filled with a stern vehemence. It was like a kind of berserkergang keyed to movement rather than violence. Swept up in my own roaring chant, I fairly flew the distance.

Strangely, I didn’t actually run, I just walked, albeit at a cracking pace, reciting my poem over and over. I covered the distance in exactly the time available, and not only that, but I was overflowing with energy when I arrived: not in the least bit tired. A totally bizarre display of physical power. I really should try to tap into that trick more often.

Less dramatically, I have found that I can get more energy to walk faster by simply increasing the tempo of my singing when I am out and about. Not exactly a new discovery – music has been used to synchronise rowers and marching soldiers for thousands of years – but I hadn’t realised that I could manipulate my own body into a swifter mode of action just by varying the tempo of my song.

2) Galdor on StageIronwood With Spirit Orbs

Things often get pretty intense when my band Ironwood performs: here is a photo from a gig – you can see the incredible proliferation of spirit orbs attracted by our magical music! Of course, a big part of our mojo is our vocals.

I often get possessed when I am on stage – in fact I think we all do – and my singing tends to take on a life of its own. Prior to our first gig, I had never been able to sing “extreme” vocals – the screeches, bellows, howls, and roars typical of extreme metal music. That was generally fine because mostly I sing “clean” in Ironwood, but sometimes I wished  could add just that extra layer of intensity to our performances.

On our first gig, after a while, I noticed a tremendous roaring voice coming back at me through the monitors. It seemed to sweep up the entire room and certainly drove me into total ecstasy. Then I realised: the voice was me! Presented with the immediacy and risk of performing for an audience had unleashed a wild and powerful new range of vocal expression for me, one that established a positive feedback loop with my trance states.

In recording settings I struggle to replicate these vocals, though my efforts for the next Ironwood album came out quite well in the end.

I think the magic of that first (and subsequent) gigs came from the fact that I didn’t recognise my own voice, and that dissociation sent me into a whirl of trances and altered states. Since then I’ve experimented a lot with exploring unorthodox ways of vocalising, and they can indeed send you into a huge range of worlds. Sometimes this practice will get me shivering spontaneously – classic Jan Fries-style seidh.

3) Galdor Duets

Apart from my time spent chanting within the Illawarra circle of the Jerrahi Sufis, in which I experienced an incredible array of magical states (not least because so many members of the circle were musicians and we’d really explore tonal chaos in our chanting), I’ve also spent a lot of time chanting with Donovan (which inspired this article from a while back). Donovan and I don’t get to do this together as much as we like, but it is always awesome.

I’d particularly like to share a recent, and quite bizarre, experience I had while rehearsing Ironwood vocals with my band mate Matthew. Matt and I were practicing a particularly beautiful but tricky duet passage that will be featured on the next Ironwood album. It is only a short span of music so we’d just sing it over and over again.

Something strange began to happen. I felt an intense sensation of electricity or energy moving up and down my limbs, through my body, my head, etc. It was like a powerful energetic vibration streaming through my body.

Then I had this intense impression that there was a third person in the room, forming the third point of a triangle with Matt and I, watching us as we sang. This presence seemed shadowy, hard to pin down, but benevolent. It was the most uncanny thing to be sitting there, singing with Matt, consumed by strange energetic sensations, watched by some ineffable but intense presence.

We stopped for a minute and I told Matt what I was experiencing.

First, he tells me that he is experiencing exactly the same energy sensation or whatever it was.

Then he tells me that he also can perceive the third person watching us…and that it is him! Matt’s perception, thanks to our singing, somehow has expanded beyond his body, and incredibly, I could sense the presence of his consciousness without any prompting or clue!

Neither of us can make any sense of the experience, but it was very empowering for us both. I chalk it up to the power of shared singing, the beauty of galdor and vocal-induced seidh-like consciousness. I am curious to see if we can replicate the experience: I wonder where it might lead?

Convinced yet that singing should be an essential part of most any magical practice? If not, give it a go and persevere. You’ll thank yourself for the effort.

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Galdor Without Runes

We tend to think that galdor has something to do with rune magic, in particular due to certain authors who have promulgated this view despite the lack of any historical evidence to that effect. The word’s roots run to the meaning of “magic song”, with the intimation of a birdsong. There is nothing in there about runes. Indeed, we could even refer to the vardlokkur, the magic song used to facilitate seidh working referred to in the Saga of Eirik the Red, as a type of galdor.

Indeed, the “birdy” aspect to the word brings to mind the myth of Sigurd. When Sigurd tastes the heart of the dragon Fafnir he is granted the ability to understand the speech of birds and proceeds to experience some kind of magical initiation or expansion of consciousness. Perhaps hearing the speech of birds is a convoluted way of saying he became conscious of galdor: of the presence of magic suffusing all things.

Once we realise that the term galdor is not nearly as specific as some misinforming writers would have us think, we find ourselves in a position of immense freedom. While presumably there were various specific forms of galdor in days of yore of which no records remain, it also seems likely that there was a proliferation of styles of galdor, just as the old myths, customs, and even the rune alphabets varied from place and culture to place and culture.

Presumably individuals of magical inclination back then were as idiosyncratic as they are today (myth, sagas, and folk tales all seem to imply this conclusion).Consequently it seems reasonable to propose that song-magic innovation, undertaken with sensitivity to the mythic corpus, is perfectly “authentic”, at least in the sense of recapitulating exactly what the old sorcerers were up to.

Given the poetic proclivities of the Heathen folk (and the existence of an Old Norse poetic form called galdralag) it also seems appropriate to include rhythmic speech and poetry set to magical purpose under the category of galdor.

Recently I have been experimenting with singing in public: walking down the street, on the platform at train stations, in shops, you name it. It takes a bit of courage to openly sing in public: we are programmed to suppress ourselves, to package ourselves away from visibility (or audibility, more specifically), in contemporary Western society. At first I found it rather terrifying, and indeed my mind would turn constantly around that impossible question, “are the people around me judging me?” Sometimes I would feel so anxious that I would end up silencing myself.

Then I realised that the opinions of my impromptu audience were completely irrelevant, and that they were almost certainly not going to act on them if in fact they didn’t like the idea of me singing. Occasionally children laugh, or more commonly, stare in bewilderment, when I walk past them, singing happily away. Often I am shocked by the number of people who have no idea that I am singing because they have headphones in their ears, or because the surrounding traffic is so loud. Modern life is definitely not what our ears evolved to handle.

Apart from the fact that my singing technique is improving and I am feeling more creative (since I am now exploring musical ideas every time I go walking in public), I am experiencing deeper changes as a result of my public singing practice, and this leads me to conclude that I am practicing a form of galdor, at least in my own specific sense of psychological reconstruction.

My public singing is having effects that might be deemed magical in two senses. Firstly, it alters my relationship to my environment, including my relationship to other people. It modifies my experience of myself and the world around me, causing various fears to weaken, and correspondingly, causing me to feel more powerful.

Secondly, it is opening up the channel of my spirit. For example, when you sing your throat opens up. The vocal chords and neck muscles get massaged and strengthened, becoming more fluid and more definite. Normal speech becomes clearer, more compelling, and a little musical – all subtle “magical” effects. Even more importantly, this singing provokes feels of great joy and a lightening of life’s burdens. I feel very energised by my regular galdor, and unwittingly break into song in all sorts of moments – even when doing simple things like cooking.

If one of the central purposes of magic is to alter one’s consciousness (we might loosely call this seidh), and another is to bring empowerment (a purpose some see as a specific  purpose of the runes) then I think I have hit on an exceptionally potential-rich form of magical practice with my personal type of galdor.

What do I sing? Mostly improvised, wordless melodies. Sometimes I chant the names of runes or gods. Sometimes, rarely, I will sing songs from my band Ironwood, but mostly I just embrace the art of exploring my voice.You don’t necessarily have to sing to make this work for you – even just to recite poetry in a projective fashion would probably suffice.

Other advantages for this type of magic are that 1) you don’t need any special skills (since you aren’t singing to produce a “quality performance” and will in any case improve your “quality” of singing organically just by doing it a lot); 2) it doesn’t require any special preparation, memorising pages of middling-to-bad poetry, waving of obscure magical artifacts, dressing up in silly costumes, or anything else like that. All you need are a set of lungs and a throat. Magic that works in the here and now of daily reality is always preferable to me.

If you are not brave enough to sing in public straight away then I suggest starting by singing in “safe” contexts: while driving, or at home. Needless to say this will necessitate turning off your television (or better, driving a steam roller over it), and choosing to listen to music less (although I suppose you could always sing along to your favourite CDs).

When first singing in public, start off almost sub-vocalising or humming to yourself; don’t even bother with opening your mouth. There is no need to freak yourself out – just gradually increase the volume and physical obviousness of your singing as your comfort zone expands. It is perfectly alright to moderate your singing as appropriate for specific circumstances – I won’t sing as loud indoors for example.

One particular challenge is to not fall quiet or silent automatically when someone walks towards you. It might be scary, but once you can happily sing despite passers-by and the opinions of strangers you might start to feel a lot more cheerful and powerful. Certainly this is gradually unfolding in my experience.

The more I sing, the easier it feels to take other kinds of action in the world, to assert myself, and so forth. For example I have always had a strong telephone phobia, but recently it seems to have almost completey entered into remissiobn. Singing is very personal, yet also very public, and it enables one to reach a valuable equilibrium between internal and external worlds. If the philosopher’s stone is a thing of thought that can directly transform matter, then singing must surely be some alchemical agent – perhaps mercury – to help facilitate the process of transforming oneself into such a stone.

Of course, as alluded above, the names of the runes do lend themselves very nicely to song, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t apply runes to the art of galdor, even if strictly speaking rune-magic and galdor are two different things.

To my mind this sort of literally empty-handed magic is much more interesting, powerful, useful, healing, and deep than a lot of the more elaborate and effortful approaches. It draws on spontaneity rather than will and creativity rather than intellectual artifice. The old Heathens lived in a tough, often brutal, world, and from necessity I think they tended to prefer the quick and practical over the unwieldy and impractical. Hence my ancestors are reborn from the wordless song on my lips.

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The Pagan Prophet: Remembering Jhonn Balance

Dedicated to the Great Heart and Great Soul of the Great Shaman Jhonn Balance
16 February 1962 to 13 November 2004 :

I don’t expect I’ll ever understand
How life just trickled through my hand

Jhonn Balance

Jhonn dead dead dead. May he be blessed by all horned animals. IO PAN IO PAN IO PAN PAN PAN! “Death knows, death goes, death blows, death shows… Does death come alone or with eager reinforcements? Holy Holy Holy”

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I

IT IS WRITTEN in The Book of the Law: Every man and every woman is a Star. It is Our Lady of the Stars that speaketh to thee, O thou that art a star, a member of the Body of Nuith! Listen, for thine ears become dulled to the mean noises of the earth; the infinite silence of the Stars woos thee with subtile musick. Behold her bending down above thee, a flame of blue, all-touching, all-penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black earth, and her lithe body arched for love, and her soft feet not hurting the little flowers, and think that all thy grossness shall presently fall from thee as thou leapest to her embrace, caught up into her love as a dewdrop into the kisses of the sunrise. Is not the ecstasy of Nuit the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of her body? All that hath hurt thee was that thou knewest it not, and as that fadeth from thee thou shalt know as never yet how all is one. Again She saith: I give unimaginable joys upon earth, certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death. This thou hast known. Time that eateth his children hath not power on them that would not be children of Time. To them that think themselves immortal, that dwell alway in eternity, conscious of Nuit, throned upon the chariot of the sun, there is no death that men call death. In all the universe darkness is only to be found in the shadow of a gross and opaque planet, as it were for a moment; the universe itself is a flood of light eternal. So also death is but through accident; thou hast hidden thyself in the shadow of thy gross body, and taking it for reality, thou hast trembled. But the orb revolveth anon; the shadow passeth away from thee. There is the dissolution, and the eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu! For inasmuch as thou hast made the Law of Freedom thine, as thou hast lived in Light and Liberty and Love, thou hast become a Free-man of the City of the Stars.

II

LISTEN AGAIN to thine own voice within thee. Is not Hadit the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star? Is not He Life, and the giver of Life? And is not therefore the knowledge of Him the knowledge of Death? For it hath been shown unto thee in many other places how Death and Love be twins. Now art thou the hunter, and Death rideth beside thee with his horse and spear as thou chasest thy Will through the forests of Eternity, whose trees are the hair of Nuit thy mistress! Thrill with the joy of life and death! Know, hunter mighty and swift, the quarry turns to bay! Thou hast but to make one sharp thrust, and thou hast won. The Virgin of Eternity lies supine at thy mercy, and thou art Pan! Thy death shall be the seal of the promise of our agelong love. Hast thou not striven to the inmost in thee? Death is the crown of all. Harden! Hold up thyself! Lift thine head! breathe not so deep–die!

III

OR ART THOU STILL ENTANGLED with the thorny plaits of wild briar rose that thou hast woven in thy magick dance on earth? Art not thine eyes strong enough to bear the starlight? Must thou linger yet awhile in the valley? Must thou dally with the shadows in the dusk? Then if it be Thy Will, thou hast no right but to do Thy Will! Love still these phantoms of the earth; thou hast made thyself a King; if it please thee to play with toys of matter, were they not made to serve thy pleasure? Then follow in thy mind the wondrous word of the Steele of Revealing itself. Return if thou wilt from the abode of the Stars; dwell with mortality, and feast thereon. For thou art this day Lord of Heaven and of Earth.

Love is the law, love under will.

The Benediction of the All-Begetter, All-Devourer be upon thee.”

(Aleister Crowley, Liber CVI: Concerning Death, Copyright OTO)


Today five years ago, John Balance died in a tragic accident. Goeffrey Rushton, better known under the name Jhonn Balance, is an artist whose art, life and magick has inspired me in many ways, when I was a teenager. John has started out as a fan of the infamous ‘Wreckers of Civilization’, Throbbing Gristle, where he met Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson, his life partner and co-founder of their band Coil. They founded the band Psychic TV and Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth with Genesis P-Orridge in 1981 (as far as I remember). After arguements they both left TOPY and Psychick TV to follow their own creative spark and to break free from TOPY that seemed to turn into a trap of a cult, as they said.

“Genesis is definitely, concretising ideas from various traditions, but we assumed the mantle of organised religion, copying aspects of The Process Church, Jim Jones and actual clerical stuff, and we came across as a cult, but we were in fact individually practicing sexual magic. So that was a camouflage, which eventually became a trap that we had to break away from. I felt very strongly that we had to get away from that.”

Their first mini-album has become How to Destroy Angels, ‘music(k) for the accumulation of male sexual energy’, which is to say that men could use it for homosexual magic(k) (though they said that women could use it, too). Their following albums Scatology and Horse Rotovator are a testimony to their brilliance and that they have always been ahead of their time (like with most albums that followed). John Balance was responsible for vocals, lyrics, chants, synthetics and various esoteric sound-making instruments and devices. Outside of Coil he collaborated with Nurse With Wound, Death In June, Psychic TV, Current 93 and Thighpaulsandra, and produced a couple of Nine Inch Nails remixes. His early work and wide-ranging collaborations made him one of the most influential figures in the industrial, experimental minimalist and neofolk music scenes. Peter Christopherson is the ‘unseen’genius behind the inimitable sounds and ‘styles’ that Coil has invented. He wasone of the original members of the band that invented the genre of Industrial Music, Throbbing Gristle, co-founded Psychic TV and Coil. Christopherson has participated in the reuniting of Throbbing Gristle (I think in 2004) as well as composed an album for his current solo endeavour The Threshold HouseBoys Choir (now SoiSong).John and ‘Sleazy’ have nurtured the entity called Coil for 23 years.

John Balance has influenced me on many levels. First of all, Coil helped me in times of isolation in ways I hardly can describe. They helped me to come to terms with the fact that I am an outsider and that I’m neither mad nor alone. (In fact Sleazy once told me in Berlin that “it’s very important to be an outsider”!) The music of Coil displayed an orginality and a creativity that showed that ‘occult experiences’ are real and can be ‘translated’ into sound. John was initially influenced by Max Ernst and the surrealists. Later P-Orridge and Burroughs introduced him to the general concept of magic as a practicality in everyday life. After having been asked how magic has sweeped into his work, he answered:

“Well it has, totally. I’ve always been into magic, with Crowley’s ‘k’, and studied it. I tried to buy stuff by Crowley when I was young, but my parents absolutely refused to have anything to do with it and actively discouraged me. I wrote to Alex Sanders (King of the Witches), when I was 14, and he wrote back to me saying thanks for writing, I’m very pleased that you want to do this, but can you write back when you’re 18. He wouldn’t accept anyone so young into his coven. I used to worship the moon too, I’d encourage other boys at school to do it, too. I just instinctivelydid things like that. It once got me into trouble. I was at school with the son of David Tomlinson, who was in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (a Disney comedy about witches). The two of us were taught astral projection by a teacher and there was a scandal because they thought there was some homosexual relationship going on with the three of us, but there wasn’t. I went to school one day and there was David Tomlinson’s limousine outside -he grabbed me as I was coming off the school bus and asked whether his son and I had a sexual relationship with this teacher. From then on, all the teachers were watching me!”

Asked at which point he started to practice magick, he said:

“…even as a kid I used to do it. I was an only child, always talking to animals, fantasy creatures and spirits. I would make little plasticine gods and make offerings to them. I was just born with a pagan sensibility. I’m an animal, I’ve never been a human – there’s no difference between animals and humans to me. I think that’s one of the signs of a true pagan. Some life experiences can just jolt you into it. I had German measles really badly, twice I think, and wasn’t allowed contact with the light in case I went blind. Shut in this dark room, that was like my initiation, I imagine.”

Ossian Brown, Thighpaulsandra, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Jhonn Balance

However, it was really Spare who got him into a way of magick that was truely his. “As soon as I discovered Austin Spare I realised that we were loners, we practiced magick on our. That’s my style of magic, the shamanic way – and Spare was definitely a shaman.” Like Spare did paint pictures in a sidereal fashion, where images and gestalts are infused into the realm of Midgard, Coil did a sidereal sound, where ‘the Other’ – the Mystery – (Runa?)pours into mundane reality.

“What Spare did in art, we try to do through music. This is why we do sidereal sound. The way he twisted his pictures, so that the geometry appears warped, we try to do that, to produce strange geometries through sound, so that it comes out sideways. We do it with technology, with 3D devices, phasers, out-of-phasers, all sorts of gizmos. There’s no one particular box that does it, we all do it any possible way that we can. … Spare used to do speaker battles, where he would project sound into the aether – which I think is a real physical thing, some kind of cosmic glue, a genuine substance, or non-substance – that connects everything and allows unexplained things and ideas to be transmitted.”

Austin Osman Spare painting you

John Balance had a very intimate relationship with Spare. He did sigils to ‘contact’ Spare and his Current of the Zos Kia Cultus. After that Coil were in touch with Crowley’s and Spare’s art forever. In many ways Balance was overwhelmed by the results of his magical workings. They collected many artifacts from these two artists and magicians. Balance claimed that you can commune with the pictures of Spare and that they would change.

“Some of the chaotic ones, you look at them with one person and see certain  hings, and you look at them with another person and you see a completely different set of things. Every piece he did was magical. There were some that were done for other people specifically as magical spells, such as the stele or the magical alphabet. But he lived his life as a magician and a stoic. He could survive for a week on a kipper… Austin Spare had people who came through for him, spirit guides, and there are magical currents. He may have opened up a gateway or whatever, but now it’s flowing in trickles, rivulets, even streams. That’s why it’s very important that we flash Zos Kia Cultus – Spare’s magical philosophy or code – and his images onto the screen at our performances, to energise Spare’s current and put our own energies into it. To make it a living, breathing, energising, wonderful thing. By Cultus I don’t mean a cult, but a way of life, a philosophy, a code, which puts me in touch with what I really, truly should be doing onthis planet.”

Existence, by Austion Osman Spare

And this means really – albeit in a different context – what Ódhinn meant by the saying that “I Give myself to mySelf”: that you would totally dedicate yourself to the divine current you come in touch with. Everything you do becomes you. There is no difference between your everyday life as Joe and your magical persona. You do not only do, but you become magick. “Like Burroughs, or Spare, there’s no difference between our philosophy, our lifestyle and our art. This is what we do. We are what we do.” Well, my friends, and this is what I call Chaos Heathenism in action. However, there is a dark side to all of this. Jhonn (as he later spelled himself) suffered from two demons: depression and alcoholism. He struggled with both of them his whole life. And as Peter has told me, his alcoholism started when they were doing E’s (MDMA) in the mid-80s and Jhonn began to use alcohol for ‘coming down’ from them. On November 11th 2004 Jhonn fell down the stairs in his house after having been drunk for weeks. He never again regained consciousness and died on November 13th 2004. Lost Balance

This has been one of the saddest days of my life. I was to perform my duty in a Gnostic Mass as a Deacon in OTO (now I left the order, as you know). My friend Maarten e-mailed me to tell me these terrible news. I was hardly able to perform the ritual, but I did and prayed for Balance and lit a candle for him (as I do every year). For days I was in shock and my girl friend (though not being a ‘fan’, but knowing my pain) cried. I will never forget the pain and grief I felt for weeks, if not months, after this shaman died. It was as if a brother has gone away.

When I interviewed ‘Sleazy’ on December 30th 2005 in Berlin with my friend Henrik, when Throbbing Gristle were doing an exhibition in Berlin, he told me many times things like this: “You should’ve asked Jhonn”, “Jhonn was the expert”, “Jhonn was into the Occult”. I’ve seen Jhonn performing in Amsterdam in the year 2000 and in Berlin a few years later. I’ve never spoken to him out of shyness. There’s nothing I regret more nowadays, but it seems to me that this was necessary. There were those who had the key to Coil (an elite or minority), and then there have been the ‘fans’. I’ve certainly belonged to the minority of those, who knew what Jhonn was talking about. In many ways his life has been an example of a prophet in a Blakean sense. “Why be bleak, when you can be Blake?”, he once said. We have seen a few of such seers. One example has been Allen Ginsberg. But at the same time you could fill in the gap by saying Jhonn Balance:

“He considered his role of poet-prophet as part of the miraculous tradition of his creator, William Blake … He recognized that the Latin conception of the poet as vates, the prophetic seer, fitted his own identity as a divinely inspired poet who could now see below the surface of reality into the very essence of existence. … When Ginsberg started searching through Blake’s writing for a model for his role as poet-prophet, he was startled by Blake’s insistence that … the art of the role of the poet was to help his fellow men perceive the depths of reality. … Blake’s prophet is not a person who predicts the future; rather, the prophet sees deeper into the meanings of things.” (Portugés 1978: 65/66)“

Jhonn Balance was just such a man. I admire the work he has created with Sleazy and I will never forget all the special moments, inspirations and revelations I experienced whilst listening to Coil. “When you listen to Coil, do you think of music?” was one of Coil’s slogans. Well, when I listen to Coil I think of magic(k). But Jhonn Balance’s tragic death meant also a departing for me on a magical level. In the past when I got ‘into’ magic(k)’ I entered the same chaotic place into which Jhonn has immersed himself totally: the derangement of the senses, as Rimbaud called it. But after I have stared into the abyss a few times – drug abuse like and otherwise – I knew that Jhonn’s sudden death was also a warning for me. Though his death had more to do with his alcoholism than magic, I also believe that approaching magic like Jhonn did (and many of us did probably) has certain dangers:

“Experience has shown that one’s life is a reflection of spiritual processes, and a magician’s desire may be counter to his or her soul’s necessity, unless backed up by the order of the sacred world (echoed in the soul) has temporary effects and often conspires to undo the fertile areas of one’s life. Therefore, magic is by no means the sole answer in the face of life’s greatest hardships (…)” (Travers 2008: The Serpent and the Eagle, p. 8f)

I also think that approaching magic without certain inner developments is a very dangerous thing. Development of Self ahead of the development of sorcery techniques (like casting sigils etc.) ensures that you will have the wisdom to seek what you need more than what you merely think you want. My path is now more towards a balance – a harmonious and more ordered way of approaching the initiatory process even if I still consider thee Chaotick Path to be my approach to the Mysteries. But in a certain way, Jhonn’s death was also a marking point for me to leave the path I’ve been walking on and to turn away from the restless seeking of drug-induced visions, extraordinary experiences and self-destructive invocations “under my unquiet skull”. Such realizations were hard lessons for me to learn and to accept and you will hardly find them in ‘occult books’ (and I read more than a few). Freeing mySelf from such fetters on my path by researching the traditions of the ancients and learning to use the consciousness technologies of the ritual and chaos magicians of today, I believe to discover a more holistic and integral vision of mySelf /selves. This means that I had to look very critically on my initiatory process and on the path(s) I’ve been walking on until now. “O Silver Goddess, keep us from single vision.” (Coil)

However, Jhonn Balance is a hero in my personal ‘pantheon’ of great individuals. May he find his way back to Midgard in a transformed form.

May the Gods Bless Thee,
Matt Anon.

Jhonn’s two friends, and the exceptional artists, David Tibet (Current 93) and Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound) say:
“With burning sadness and with burning sorrow we remember You as:
kindest of men, funniest of men, most intuitive of men, most incisive of men, most generous of men, a great artist, a great voice, a great visionary, a great Soul and a great Heart. Finally you were overwhelmed by it all: by all the beauty and by all the pain. You perhaps never knew how much you were loved. Till we meet again as we know we will, our dearest friend, with love always to you dearest Geff, John, Jhonn, shape-shifter and joker, in angelic form now, playing with stars in the love of God.   David Tibet and Steven Stapleton”

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Here’s to You, Father!

This song has been played by the German band FORSETI and sung by Ian Read:

This is dedicated to my father, who died on April 11th 2008. Having fought communism, you are an example for all those, who fight for Freedom! I love you…

Empfindsamkeit

Siehst du der Felder Leuchten,
Wenn Tau im Morgenlicht
Berauscht vom Rot der Sonne
Durch junge Halme bricht.

Hörst du der Wälder Atem,
Der durch den Abend weht
Und fernen Sturm verkündet,
Der sich schon bald entlädt.

Spürst du die rauhe Rinde
An alter Esche Stamm.
Zerfurcht vom Weltenwandel,
Das Holz vom Nebel klamm.

Riechst du den Duft der Erde,
So regennaß und schwer.
Er strömt aus schwarzem Grunde,
Noch kahl und saatenleer.

Schmeckst du das Salz des Meeres
Im Wandel der Gezeiten.
Ein Sehnen nach der Ferne,
Nach unbekannten Weiten.

Kannst du im Traum erahnen
Verborgener Sinne Macht,
Die deinen Geist begleiten
Durch tiefe Erdennacht.

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