“In true mediation, a human acts as a focus, or gateway, for the consciousness of transhuman beings” - R.J.Stewart

Mediation - A Definition Of True Contact

In orthodox 'religion' Mediation is seen as a function of a priest or priestess, where a mediator is one who acts as an interface between divinity and humanity.

In magic, however, mediation has a far more precise meaning, based on the essential truth that all contain divinity or 'the original being' within us. All are also contained within the Being of the universe. In true mediation, any individual can reach deeply into the states of consciousness where transcendent entities can be met. Such entities can be aspects of divinity; god-forms or beings which have transcended human expression and no longer incarnate on this plane.

In mediation, a human acts as a 'focus' or 'gateway' for the consciousness of such transcendent entities. But know this is not the sole purpose or type of mediation found in the magical arts.

Mediation is not a matter of passive reception, such as the cliched and superficial process of 20th century 'mediumship', but of clarifying and refining personal modes of awareness. When these higher modes are attuned to inner worlds or beings which are vital to magic, mediation may arise.

Mediation is not a matter of 'receiving messages'. If this was the case then it would be virtually valueless as higher modes of awareness and higher spiritual energies actually transcend verbal communication. A true mediator may be able to translate certain key images of the spiritual realms into words, but the mediator is more likely to act as a channel for a specific energy or power to flow out into the magical circle and more ultimately into the world.

Therefore, an initiate working magic, such as rituals or visualisations, may become a mediator through the simple act of ritual pattern making and the controlled use of the imagination. In the magical arts, anyone making a sign, or chanting a mantra, or visualising a symbol, is mediating the power of being through specific and dynamic magical archetypal channels. The more powerful effects of mediation, however, are not usually developed without years of effort and deliberate control.

Taken from 'Living Magical Arts' by R.J.Stewart. This adaptation by Matthew James Dec 2006.

The Youth of the Three Disguises

The Youth Of The Three Disguises is The Fool in the tarot, and later he grows to become The Hanged Man. As The Fool he is neither male nor female, for he/she is the bipolar/bisexual potential in each of us. This represents the human being in the earth and Lunar world. The Fool is also the Divine Child, Mabon, at the centre of the spiral of Worlds, and beings. (R.J. Stewart)

'The Simple Rule Of Contact'

There is a simple rule in magical contact work; do not bother to debate the so-called reality of your contacts; but do behave as if they are real at the time of communication or interaction. Like people in the outer world, innerworld contacts will come and go; some will prove to be important, others will be fleeting encounters. Intellectual debate is meaningless in magical art, it can carry us on so far. But this does not imply that we should abandon scepticism, analysis or sound common sense. An innerworld contact that proposes absurd suggestions is just as dangerous as any inbalanced personality making absurd suggestions in the outer world. If a contact appears to be absurd, the magician challenges it; often the image and message will transform if correctly challenged or channelled. Modern occultism has more or less abandoned this element of magical ritual which featured strongly in the curious grimoires of medieval ceremonial magic, or in folk tales -- RJ Stewart.

Methods Of Using Tarot Images - Conversation

An image , such as a tarot trump, is selected and briefly meditated upon. The magician then strikes up an imaginary conversation with whoever or whatever is in the image.

This is a natural imaginative game and has nothing to do with 'spiritualism'. Such conversations can give rise to valuable insights, information and experience; on a deeper level they may act as an interface for levels of consciousness which may not yet be accessible to the magician --- RJ Stewart (p 168 - Living Magical Arts)

Mediation Not Mediumship

Mediation is the function of a priest/priestess; a mediator is one who intercedes or acts as an interface between divinity and humanity. In magic mediation has a more precise meaning, based upon the important truth that we all contain divinity (or the original source) within us, just as we are all contained within the being of the universe.

In true mediation, any individual may reach deeply into the states of consciousness where transhuman entities are met. Such beings may be aspects of divinity, or god-forms, or entities who have transcended human experience and exist solely in the inner worlds. In mediation, a human acts as a focus or gateway (a portal) for the consciousness of such transhuman beings ... but it is not the sole purpose or type of mediation found in magical art.

In other words, mediation is not a matter of passive reception (as in the popularised and superficial process of mediumship) but of refining and clarifying personal modes of awareness. When these higher modes are attuned to the worlds or beings so essential to magical holism mediation may arise.

Most significantly, mediation is not a matter of 'messages'; if it was so, it be more or less valueless, as higher modes of awareness or higher spiritual energies transcend and obviate verbal communication. A true mediator may be able to translate certain key images or intuitions of the spiritual realms into words, but he or she is more likely to act as a channel for a specific power to flow out into the magical circle, or ultimately into the world. It is the last sense that true priests/priestesses are known - they mediate the power of divinity. (R J Stewart - p47/48 Living Magical Arts)

Deep into the UnderWorld

An article by R.J.Stewart

There are two main aspects of UnderWorld spirituality and magic: Transformation and Regeneration. These have been the two pillars of the UnderWorld traditions worldwide for millenniums, regardless of culture, religion, race, or geographical location. (I use the spelling UnderWorld intentionally, to refer to a realm of energy and consciousness, so that we do not think of organized crime under the surface of the planet).

During the 21st century, at least in the West, we are finally emerging from a long suppressive phase of group consciousness, in which the UnderWorld was equated with evil or, at least, undesirable earth forces. Why are such earth forces undesirable? Because, we have been told repeatedly, they are Below rather than Above. It takes a long time for the collective psyche to emerge from religious manipulation, and we find a divisive pattern in much of our current spiritual revival.

Yet, I would propose, such a naïve dualistic argument fails, even in terms of common sense. Above and below are illusions fostered by gravity…go far enough below and you come to the sky again. It is the journey to the stars beneath that leads us through the UnderWorld, and liberates us from antagonistic dualism.

More simply, all growing things are nourished from below: our very existence on Earth fails without the life forces that rise from Below. A tree cannot survive without roots, and the circulation of energies from Below is the foundation of all growth in our world. In the spiritual traditions we discover that truths of nature are also truths of spirit.

If we refer back to ancestral times, no more than a century or so, we find folkloric traditions of the faery and underworld powers in Western culture. Some of these have been discussed in my earlier articles in this series. A little further back again, and we begin to find UnderWorld spirituality at the core of the oldest traditions, such as those of the Celts, the Norse and Germanic peoples, the Greeks, and the Romans. Far from being outmoded old junk and superstition, such traditions provided a working model of relationship between humanity and the land, the planet, couched in terms of gods and goddesses, and practiced as ceremonies and magical techniques. Today we would call this Environmental Magic, perhaps. But in the past there was no “environment”, there was only Life. And life begins, and ends, in the nourishing, regenerative, transformative depths of the Earth…in the UnderWorld.

So where, exactly, is this deeper UnderWorld that our ancestors understood to be the source of life? It is somewhat below the faery realm, though it includes the faery realm, and it also includes collective ancestral memories. I will rephrase that for clarity: the faery realm is that spiritual dimension where humanity intersects with all plants and living creatures, with the elemental forces of sea, wind, earth, and fire. This is where the faery races are found, somewhere between the surface world and the deeper planetary forces. Indeed, they act as go-betweens or mediators.

The UnderWorld is deeper than the faery realm alone, and is embodied to us by the older gods and goddesses, the titans and giants, and the vast planetary being itself, of which they are all a part.

In ancestral sacro-magical practices, the UnderWorld was often the realm of a dark goddess. She brought transformation, as she was, and still is, the goddess of destruction and regeneration. This dark goddess, known by many names worldwide, personifies the transformative forces of the planet.

And yes, these are forces that we can, and do work with. I say, “do work with” because we interact with such forces continuously, as part of our life on Earth. We could not exist without the dark goddess, by whatever name she chooses to be called. There is a difference, of course, between intentional work and unconscious interaction. If we work with these planetary UnderWorld forces intentionally, the transformative process is greatly enhanced and accelerated.

This is one of the so- called “secrets” of the old magical traditions: if you consciously interact with the planetary forces of the UnderWorld, you will become transformed. First destruction (of the false self, of delusion) then regeneration (of the true self, unalloyed by temporary personality).

Word Jumble #7

Unscramble the word jumble below to uncover to ravel the missing section of the following passage from 'Living Magical Arts' by R J Stewart and then complete the passage ...

"......................................................................., but god and goddess forms and heroic or tragic archetypes are not encouraged in the magical art unless they are specifically applied and subsequently de-manifested back to levels where the form or image or cyclic pattern is reabsorbed into the general flow of life energy"

EHISN FO ETRU ETH GEBIN LAL YMA INORGI SU YDIVINTI NITIHW

The Chariot

The Chariot - Rider Waite Tarot image

The Chariot divinatory meaning relates to higher knowledge, scientific inspiration and research. May also mean spiritual sciences and esoteric/hermetic arts. Enlivening energy within the given situation leading to a reasoned resolution inspired by insight.

In the Merlin Tarot, The Chariot is a female figure, deriving from a number of the well known classical goddess names; an archetype of Minerva. The political Minerva of the Roman Empire is a taylor made image imposed upon a wild, chariot driving goddess of the Celts. In the Merlin Tarot, the name Minerva is used in a functional sense as opposed to a Roman historical sense.

All variant forms of the goddess are representative of culture & civilisation utilising wild energies of life towards creative balanced ends. Thus, she has a savage primal goddess within her, yet protects and inspires selected heroes towards achievements which help mankind to develop collectively.

The Charioteer employs individual and collective consciousness as a vehicle for specific consciousness; guided mind and intellect to balance & define wild energies within a situation.

The Charioteer, in the Merlin Tarot image (not the one above) carries a long spear/staff which represents power under control and direction of a guiding consciousness; the Charioteer directs the horse & the chariot (the vehicle of the guided consciousness), and if necessary she defends the ford across the stream, the road and the city beyond. She bears a circular shield on her left shoulder, which bears the face of a solar god. He is Bel and represents the victorious sun, the pagan sun kings, gods & heroes who were guided by the goddess.

The Charioteer as mentioned previously is the symbolic Minerva, who is the patroness of all arts, sciences, all cultural growth. She brings balance & harmony into the minds of mortals; but she also has a warlike role acting as a defender or destroyer.

In the Chariot she brings corruption through the cleansing and enlightening power of intellect in service to spiritual consciousness. Her role is to challenge our preconceptions of intellectual or scientific superiority before she permits us to develop further. This last role is a reflection of the basic power of taking; or red dragon.

The path of the Chariot is that of development and pattern building. The cultivated landscape and constructed city in the image are alternative forms of the spiral path over the moor and the hill with its mysterious cavern. The city is the enduring, timeless Holy City, in which the grail may have been found at certain times. The city holds within its walls the Mystery of Light. (taken from The Merlin Tarot by R J Stewart)

The Fool: Origins of the image

The Fool is traditionally regarded as the most important, yet least significant of all the tarot images. In many systems, The Fool is not even given a number, being outside of the regular order of trumps. The Fool partakes of all images in the entire tarot pack, but particularly the trumps --- thus there are twenty two ways of defining The Fool. These definitions are given form by the trump images, so when we consider the trump of The Fool in its own right, we must consider an overview of the tarot as well as one specific image.

When a cosmic pattern of tarot is defined, we are observing a map which acts as a working definition of the universe on one level of meaning; or of interactions between the inner & outer worlds upon another; both levels are represented by landscapes filled with images or symbols; both levels are reflections of one another.

The Fool is an individual who travels through the landscapes, both on a universal and a human level. Therefore The Fool is originative divinity or pure being and expressed humanity. He is a transpersonal androgynous entity; he/she is the root of consciousness becoming self aware. Such self-awareness may be in the human sphere where the mind begins a long, slow process of reflection, assimilation and self examination; it may also be in the supernal or stellar sphere, where the the unknown source of existence breathes force or uttrs stars as reflections of itself. These ultimate extremes, and all reflections between them are The Fool; though in the connecting Images the role become very firmly attuned, polarised and specific. This specialisation of course gives rise to the trumps and their set of relationships. (RJ Stewart)

Tarot Insight

There is no 'chance' in the layout of tarot cards; even though it appears that statistical elements of chance movements define the order in which a run of cards appear.

Insight is the result of higher functions of Tarot. These functions interact with human consciousness through the disciplined arts of meditation, visualisation and contemplation. The descriptions of the individual Tarot trumps deal mainly with the insights into the symbols & their relationship with one another, and with deeper insights into their function as a model of the universe.

Insight comes from working with the Tarot over periods of time, yet the actual moments of insight are timeless.

It is typical of Tarot work that a highly energies sequence of insights will arise in the earliest stages, and that effort & discipline will be required to fix and relate these insights; bringing them through into regular awareness. The converse, that unrewarding effort and discipline must be undertaken before any results occur, is rare indeed in work with Tarot; but discipline must be part of any use of Tarot, otherwise the results return, as it were, to inner or unconscious dimensions.

Insight plays a major role in divination and requires a fine degree of application and control. It might be in a situation that a trump appears in the context of a question and its answering pattern, but it is not possible to grasp the relationship of this particular trump to the overview or pattern which arises -- it appears out of keeping & cannot give a satisfactory divinatory answer. Reshuffling the cards, to thus create a new pattern, is often equivalent to forcing an answer. It may well be that we would be at a loss to read a symbol, so would try to dispose of it ... more often than not the same symbol would reappear. If the trump is then meditated on briefly to a defined depth or degree, it will often reveal its meaning within the apparent context or placement in the pattern of the cards.

The matter of a defined depth or degree of meditation is important; Tarot have clear worlds or realms of definition, not because there was a true belief that the universe comprised three sections, but because the organic triple division was employed to aid human consciousness in its development and expansion without risk of loss of focus, or in extreme cases, imbalance. The threefold pattern does have clear analogies and correspondence with a physical reality (Moon, Sun & Star worlds). However it is of more valuable as a model of deliberate control and balance. If the mediator is able to break through into higher contemplative levels of a trump ... then it is possible to reach beyond the temporal situation in which a question or answer may be employed. The Trump is encountered in its own archetypal state of the world, rather than in relationship to a human expression or situation.

Tarot works through relationship and not through random collective of images in juxtaposition as it is frequently assumed. There is no 'chance' in the layout of tarot cards; even though it appears that statistical elements of chance movements define the order in which a run of cards appear.

Some Tarot card sequences are totally clear as soon as they are laid out while others require lengthy meditation. The art is greatly enhanced and made more rapid by a total familiarity of the tarot trumps themselves. The more familiar the mediator is with the personality of each trump the greater the accuracy of the insight. A skilled mediator with experience of Tarot is able to generate accurate patterns of divination with a very small number of cards. (R J Stewart)

Reflections

We all encounter reflections from the moon pool in dreams; some dreams arise from our individual consciousness, while others are reflections of inhabitants or energies of the greater lunar world. It is in this realm that the much maligned and misunderstood 'astral plane' of popular occultism is found.

The dimensions between the Moon & the Earth are said to be occupied by 'daemones'. These communicating entities who may just as humans, do good or ill. Many of the dead ends and follies of popular occultism are related to this concept, but a clarification & definition of such entities in modern practice provides genuine instruction and interaction. The daemon or 'advising entity' as described by Socrates, is a classic example of proper form & function of such entities; which is quite different from either the medieval 'demon' or the confused modern notion of 'spirit guide'.

Initial teachers of transformative arts & spiritual wisdom are encountered in the Lunar World; during later stages of developments of consciousness such teachers may disappear or transform into new contacts. (R J Stewart)

Back to basics: Sacred Space

What is 'sacred space'?

Sacred space is space enlivened by consciousness. be in no doubt, all space is sacred, all being.

If humans dedicate and define a zone, a location, something remarkable happens within that defined sphere of consciousness and energy. The space will interact and communicate. This is in keeping with ancient traditions of the seer or seeress communing with the land ...

The land, any immediate locality, enlivened by consciousness and energy flowing out from within ourselves ... is attuned to (the) six directions - east, south, west, north, above and below. There is a seventh direction, that of within; within ourselves. This is the one direction which cannot be conscious in the land; for within each human being is the ultimate spiritual seed which brings the land to full consciousness.

The most obvious Sacred Space is your own body, the manifestation of all that you are within this virtual reality. When this is aligned and attuned to a dedicated zone or physical location, the attuned realities [yourself and the sacred space] can interact.


Source: R.J.Stewart 'The way Of Merlin"


My Own 'Sacred Space'

Wherever I write, muse, meditate, communicate I will always form a 'sacred space'. A zone I feel protected in; and at ease in. Whether it is the room of a house; the interior of a car; beneath a copse of trees outside ... I will always evoke a sacred space. I see it as defining a 'work space' or 'an intention'. In its simplest form I visualise a circle or band of energy around the area I am using as the sacred space. Much like the magician's circle I visualise it as a line which much not be crossed by stray thoughts or stray entities. It is a technique I first developed around twenty years ago as a 'form of protection' and as a 'focus' for energies. It developed, as a side track, that often when I created a sacred space and drew in my will to communicate or meditate I would often form a 'portal' within the sacred space between this level of awareness and others; usually those I was accessing at the time.

Having just recently moved property, and once more residing in another rumpus-like room with unknown energies and unknown presences, I find it necessary to set up a sacred space in order to recreate the energy levels and frequencies which I have been accustomed to, enabling me to be still within and able to communicate with known frequency levels. No doubt another portal shall be created here; communion with the land at my feet will also occur ... which is another reason for sacred spaces. Through this it is possible to tap into the consciousness of the land and understand past histories of the space I am sitting in.

Mediation - A Definition Of True Contact

In orthodox 'religion' Mediation is seen as a function of a priest or priestess, where a mediator is one who acts as an interface between divinity and humanity.

In magic, however, mediation has a far more precise meaning, based on the essential truth that all contain divinity or 'the original being' within us. All are also contained within the Being of the universe. In true mediation, any individual can reach deeply into the states of consciousness where transcendent entities can be met. Such entities can be aspects of divinity; god-forms or beings which have transcended human expression and no longer incarnate on this plane.

In mediation, a human acts as a 'focus' or 'gateway' for the consciousness of such transcendent entities. But know this is not the sole purpose or type of mediation found in the magical arts.

Mediation is not a matter of passive reception, such as the cliched and superficial process of 20th century 'mediumship', but of clarifying and refining personal modes of awareness. When these higher modes are attuned to inner worlds or beings which are vital to magic, mediation may arise.

Mediation is not a matter of 'receiving messages'. If this was the case then it would be virtually valueless as higher modes of awareness and higher spiritual energies actually transcend verbal communication. A true mediator may be able to translate certain key images of the spiritual realms into words, but the mediator is more likely to act as a channel for a specific energy or power to flow out into the magical circle and more ultimately into the world.

Therefore, an initiate working magic, such as rituals or visualisations, may become a mediator through the simple act of ritual pattern making and the controlled use of the imagination. In the magical arts, anyone making a sign, or chanting a mantra, or visualising a symbol, is mediating the power of being through specific and dynamic magical archetypal channels. The more powerful effects of mediation, however, are not usually developed without years of effort and deliberate control.

Taken from 'Living Magical Arts' by R.J.Stewart. This adaptation by Matthew James Dec 2006.