Choosing Not To Mix Paganism and Christianity....Why?

Ancient of Days, by William Blake

"Thou shall have no other gods before me"
-Exodus 20:3 (King James Bible)



Anyone who knows me knows I'm a professed Pagan in terms of my identity as a magician. For me, what this means, is that the spirits I have both a reciprocal and devotional relationship with are gods that are considered Pagan deities (the Egyptian gods specifically). I worship in a Pagan style of prayer and offerings that sometimes involves petitioning the gods for some boon while at other times are merely done out of sense of joy and gratitude.

My gods aren't wholly of another kind than myself, they are more like older siblings or even parents who I honor because they are who they are. But, more than that, not only are they persons, in the sense of having individual identity, but they are also principles that allow me to exist not only in terms of having breath, but in terms of all the experiences of being alive.

For example, a very simplistic snapshot...

Ra is sovereignty and the life giving power of the Sun while also being a distinct divine person. Hathor is sexuality, joy, and aesthetic beauty, while also being a distinct divine person. Osiris is the power of resurrection and renewal while still being a distinct divine person. Sekhmet is the power of war, aggression, disease, and healing while also being a distinct divine person. Each of the gods is a principle, or set of principles, as well as a person.

Goddess Isis

There is a complex panentheistic, polytheistic, and animistic metaphysics underlying my system of sacro-magickal belief and practice that is the result of education and practice over many years.

For me, religion and magick are fundamentally inseparable insofar as I work with my spirits in nearly all acts of magickal practice. For example, the act of consulting the tarot for guidance is proceeded by an invocation to Thoth who, while being a divine person in his own right is, quite literally, the personified qualities of the insight as wisdom I seek when doing divination.

Such a way of interacting with the gods and spirits one has a relationship with has a very particular way of reorientating one to the world. This is an immediate and tangible means by which to accomplish the re-enchantment of the world.

I've always suspected that the ahistorical separation that exists in the modern mind between religion and magick is largely artificial, an artifact of an age wherein magick was seen as inherently transgressive and outside the will of God. The only acceptable supernatural aid (in the Western world) came from petitioning saints for intercession or praying for a miracle directly from Jesus or God Himself. The magician/sorcerer was one who interacted with spirits that granted power and boons outside of the direct auspices of God (and the church), and whose work was not religious in the way those of this time understood religion.

 Edward Kelly and John Dee
summoning the dead for divination.

It does seem true that nearly all cultures have a demarcation regarding acceptable and unacceptable, permitted and transgressive, magick but only in the modern world is the magician seen as fundamentally and archetypally other than priest or priestess. The archetypal magicians of the Western world, whether real or fictional, such as Merlin (seen as a druid, but very much the mage), Agrippa, Dee, Gandalf, even very modern incarnations like Raistlin Majere, are all outside the purview of priestcraft.

Even those mainstream religionists who allow for the existence of miracles (fewer and fewer with the growing influence of materialism and scienceism) will still claim that the intercession of a saint isn't magick because magick is power granted by forces other than their God. According to the party line, priests don't do magick, priests pray and hope for the best. According to this paradigm, the magician/sorcerer is transgressive, the very opposite of the priest, by nature.

Though obviously I don't share the ahistorical outlook that there is, by nature, a necessary separation between priest(ess) and magician, I have an admission to make. I too share a certain ahistorical outlook influenced by the very same paradigm that created the polarized line between priestcraft and sorcery.

My ahistorical hangup has to do with mixing Pagan and Abrahamic concepts. I don't.

I've always kept my Paganism and Abrahamism separate. Even when I sojourned into Golden Dawn based ceremonial magick for a period of about three years, I set aside my devotional Paganism completely, said farewell to the gods I had been worshiping (there was no jealousy, no anger on their part, only a peaceful allowing) and embraced my new paradigm as fully as I could. I wanted to see what it was all about, the qabalah, the angels, the Hebrew Letters, YHWH, and I both devoured knowledge and practiced with gusto.

However, despite myself, I was always fighting a sort of inner resistance and after about three years, and even after a profoundly moving experience of Christ while meditating on Tiphareth, (a story for another time perhaps) I put away my ceremonial magick books and came back to Paganism. Despite the deep intellectual satisfaction that ceremonial magick gave me, as well as the obvious spiritual power of the rites, it simply wasn't my spiritual home.

Like a Prodigal Son, I had to leave so that I could return more appreciative of my home, my relationships with the spirits, and grateful for the relationships that had somehow deepened even with my leaving. I, more than ever, felt closer to my gods in a truly Pagan animistic sense. No longer was Isis, Osiris, Anubis, Horus, Ra, Thoth, Nephthys, and the other gods  fundamentally transcendent, if approachable, they were here now, immanent and present in the world. Their reality had become tangible in a way it had never been before. Certainly they had transcendent aspects, but they were here now, with me, ever-present.

Leaving and returning had been so important to my relationship with my gods that I sense it is entirely possible that they pushed me out of the nest so that I could experience what I needed to experience so as to enter into deeper relationship with them upon my return.

The gods, they work in mysterious ways.

Even since my reunion with my gods, I'll be the first to admit a deeper than ever aversion to mixing my Paganism and its spirits with Christianity and its spirits. Even the idea of continuing my devotion to my gods while keeping Abrahamic based practices (such as traditional grimoiric evocations) entirely separate feels off. I know that there are some Pagans, Christians, and even Buddhists who are dual practitioners but, for me, that seems awkward, clumsy, and internally contradictory.

Because my Pagan magickal practice is a manifestation not of a Will to Power, but instead a manifestation of a religious impulse directing me to an ever deepening relationship with the Numinous as manifest in my relationship with the gods, dual practice seems, for lack of a better word, wrong. It seems like a bastardization of both my Pagan spiritual path and the Abrahamic path embedded in much of the Western Esoteric tradition.

And because I am self-aware, I recognize that my aversion to all things Abrahamic is ahistorical, especially in terms of late Pagan magick as clearly demonstrated in The Greek Magickal Papyri, but the aversion is there and it's visceral. My aversion to all things Abrahamic isn't animus toward Christianity, Judaism, or Islam per se (especially in their mystical manifestations) or practitioners of these faiths. It's a paradigmatic aversion that rejects the cosmology and metaphysical assumptions of these faiths.

Christian Mystic Thomas Merton

I share a lot of common values with, and have a great deal of respect for, Christians who are good and compassionate people, Christian mystics, and Christian magicians. Christian devotional mystics like Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, and Richard Rohr have made me a better Pagan by clarifying the nature of kenotic meditation practices I still use (it's good tech). Understanding the means by which a piece of magickal/spiritual tech works then stripping it down to its core components (ie. the parts that do the work) is smart, historically sound, sorcery. 

Unlike many who profess modern Paganism, I was never Christianized. My mother is a non-Wiccan Witch and my father was nominally Christian, but no longer. I was raised with complete freedom to seek for myself without any pressure to accept the spiritual beliefs of either my father or my mother. My mother did manage to keep me away from her Witchcraft books until I was twelve years old, for safety reasons. And, to be fair to her, though I didn't appreciate it at the time, I believe her decision, in retrospect, was the right one. No telling what sort of trouble a magickally inclined nine year old could have gotten into.

However, despite never formally being part of Christianity and never having been baptized, I did go to Catholic school for eight years (which started me on the path to being a Christian theology geek) and, like anyone born into Western culture Christianity is part of the background noise of life. The culture-wide holidays such as Christmas and Easter, the turns of phrase we use to express ourselves (often from the KJV), those who usually surround us as family and friends, even the way we swear when we're angry or stub our toes reflect Christianity as deep, unavoidable cultural substrate, to a greater or lesser extent.

It isn't lost on me that my aversion, may be, quite ironically, an artifact of being part of a Christian culture wherein the idea of mixing pantheons is not merely verboten, it is unthinkable. The other team is the enemy and one just doesn't pick and choose aspects of each team based on one's preference. You are on Yahweh's team or you aren't.

Oil and Water

"And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth."
-Exodus 20:3 (King James Bible)

Christianity is, at least historically, a path of orthodoxy even more than it is a path of orthopraxy. In other words, Christianity is about belief (a profession of faith) primarily and secondarily about practice (works). Though there is extreme, even historically murderous, divisions between Catholicism and Protestantism regarding the exact means by which divine grace and and one's works converge so as to produce the state of being saved, there is no division regarding the fact that faith is of preeminent importance in a way not seen in orthopraxic faiths like nearly all of modern Paganism or other practice heavy faiths like Theraveda Buddhism.

Personally, I grapple with the idea of using Christian spirits, or indeed any spirit, in a purely utilitarian fashion utterly divorced from the theology  and context (ie. underpinning beliefs and metaphysical assumptions) that makes them in any way coherent. That kind of "use them because they work" approach reminds me too closely of the lists of gods one would find in old Wicca 101 books (for your love spell, just choose "Ishtar, Isis, Hathor, or Aphrodite"). No cosmology, no metaphysics, no relationship, just tools in a toolbox to use and set aside when finished. This is fine if the gods and spirits are merely personifications of one's personal unconscious, but strikes me as wildly disrespectful if they are, as I believe, extant beings with agency and personality. 

Curiously enough, this manner of practice was the very kind of wild magickal/spiritual eclecticism that was decried and mocked by countless Pagans and magicians throughout the 80s and 90s for it's mix and match, gods and spirits as tools, with no concern for incompatible theologies or metaphysical assumptions. I'm not surprised to see that what was old is new again, because everything in occulture is cyclic, but I'd suggest that a lot of baby Pagans who were mocked for their eclectic practices during the 1990s by those "in the know" are owed an apology.

The wild west of the occult scene of the 80s and 90s, and its anything goes eclecticism, does bear a greater similarity to the manner in which magick was practiced in late antiquity than it does to more recent efforts at striving towards internal consistency and coherence within broader modern cultic or personal practice. Despite that, I do prefer coherence, as well as internal and aesthetic consistency tending as I do to prefer systematic syncretism to wild eclecticism.

So, like all of us, I've been impacted by Christianity but not in the manner in which I've suspected for a long time. I suspected, for a long time that my aversion was rooted in the adverse effects Christianity has had on culture (for example):

• The religious imperialism that annihilated Paganism from Europe including the various mystery schools...absorbing and co-opting ideas isn't merely preservation when it extinguishes the original source.

• The religious imperialism that destroyed indigenous cultures, often enslaved adults, and forced indigenous children to live away from their families and forget their spirits, traditions, and cultures.

• Forcing my ancestors on my father's side to be Christian via the lash.

• The misogyny as demonstrated by the pro-life movement and "traditional values" cults like the Quiverfull movement.

• Christian Dominionism wherein Protestant lawmakers want to religiously dominate the 7 Mountains of culture (Dominionism - The Seven Mountains ).

• Attempting to force anti-science creationism into school science classes.

• Legislating demonstrably useless abstinence only sex education in schools.

• The Christian religious litmus test that does exist in terms of anyone seeking the office of president. No non-Christian has any hope of being elected president in the United States.

• The soulless and useless Christianity defanged of its fierce compassion that allows millions and millions of professing Christians to unashamedly support legislators that would vote to remove vital health services from millions of their countrymen and women.

• The soulless and useless Christianity that attacks homosexuals while ignoring the grievous sins of those whose asses warm the pews...the liars, cheats, adulterers, thieves, the covetous, etc. 

• The twisted transcendentalism of millions of American Protestants who feel that protecting the environment is unnecessary because Christ is coming back to fix it...all while we are in the midst of a man-made great extinction. 

• The Christianity that wraps itself up in the American Flag while ignoring the plight of refugees from war-torn nations, edifies the rich and demonizes the poor. 

• And so on and so on...

Though many of my European friends will not be able to relate to the kind of Christianity I'm describing, it assuredly does exist and it is, in the United States, no mere outlier. In fact, it is the twisted heart and soul of the Conservative Evangelical Christian movement that in played a large part in getting Trump and his cronies elected.

I know there are many who will be thinking, "but that's not real Christianity!"

G.K. Chesterson's,"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting it has been found difficult and not tried," notwithstanding, the "No True Scotsman Fallacy" is piss poor apologetics. This sort of apologetics is nearly utopian in its clinging to an ahistorical version of Christianity that has only, if ever, existed in the heart of Christian mystical adepts.

Christianity, like all faiths, is, for good and ill, as it is practiced, not as it is on paper or in the hearts of those that are sometimes better than the tradition they profess. There is good and there is bad in Christianity and BOTH of those things are Christianity as magickal egregore, spiritual tradition, and mystical path. Any argument to the contrary ignores both history and current reality. 

Getting back to my point, the inner aversion that causes me to reject the idea that Christianity and Paganism are like chocolate and peanut butter (ie. great together) is rooted in the fact I take theology, metaphysics and cosmology rather seriously (I want my personal theology/cosmology to be coherent) and believe these things represent the heart and soul of a given spiritual path much more so that do the smells, bells, outer regalia, spells, icons, and accouterments that many occultists find appealing. Those things are the icing on the cake perhaps, but the beating heart goes deeper than that. The beating heart is the narrative metaphors that introduce us to, and define the roles of, the spirits and gods of a given path whether ancient or modern.

Myth is spiritual metaphor, and some metaphors can, in my opinion, make poor bedfellows even if they share a common ancient roots due in no small part to thousands of years of cultural accretions that influence how we understand a given spiritual tradition, in this case Christianity. Thousands of years of history and impact do not magically disappear because, according to speculative history, 50,000 years ago all extant religions came from the same Lurasian root source myths. Using the Lurasian theory as argument to justify simply choosing mythic motifs in a utilitarian fashion is an interesting perspective but one that points in a direction I suspect that very few people would appreciate if taken to its logical conclusion.

That's a conversation for another time.

So, is my choice to avoid mixing Paganism or my reluctance to engage in dual Pagan and Christian practice ahistorical?

For the Paganism of late antiquity, at least in some cases, yes.

However, I've never made claim that my practice was meant to be a mirror match for either early Paganism or the Pagan magickal or spiritual practices of Late Antiquity. My practice is that of a 21st Century Pagan Magician, based as much as possible on lore, but rooted primarily in my relationships with the gods as both devotee and sorcerer. My path is a results orientated magickal and spiritual path/practice (theory must support results, not the other way around), and is inspired by many, yet beholden to no other, spiritual or magickal traditions.

There are sound reasons for the choices experienced magicians make even if those choices run counter to the zeitgeist of the moment. 

Prayer to Isis Panthea - A Modern Pagan's Prayer to the Great Goddess as Ground of Being

This is going to be, for me, a relatively brief blog post as its purpose is to impart the words I was inspired to put to paper, so to speak, upon arising from meditation this evening.

In all my years as a Pagan magician and mystic (30+yrs at this point) I have come to understand that all I need to know or experience, in terms of spiritual awareness, has ever been made available to me via the vehicle of committed spiritual practice. No amount of study, stimulating conversation with either like-minded or challenging souls, or intellectual rumination can help one come to terms with spiritual, magickal, and mystical realities the way dedicated spiritual practice can.

Spiritual awareness is, in this context, akin to falling in love.

No amount of reading up on the subject of falling in love can truly prepare one for the reality of what it really means to fall in love. Of course, one can read all about the evolutionary benefits of pair bonding, the neuro-chemical tides released by the brain when one feels love, or any number of brute, and often sadly reductionistic, facts on the subject of love as a biological reality. One may even accomplish being seen as either quite intelligent or as an insufferable bore, depending on the company one keeps, due to the ability to regurgitate such trivia on demand.

However, despite the fact one's brain is brimming with others' thoughts on the subject of love, none of this second-hand knowledge will be more than a footnote in the awareness of one who has actually fallen in love. The thoughts of others on the subject of love are swept away in a tsunami of personal experience that makes pale and shallow the pedestrian intellectualizing that once served as truth.

Such is the experience of the Divine for those who are willing to set aside being armchair magicians and mystics and who, instead, are willing to do the work and experience for ourselves what others merely talk about.

My theology is distinctly monistic (basically Panentheistic Dialectical Monism) in approach and though, nowadays, monism seems to have fallen on hard times within some sectors of the Pagan Community, I've never been one to pay much, if any, attention to the theological squabbles of others, I have always sought instead to follow the path of practice, study, and personal gnosis.

Isis Rising by Gilbert Williams

Prayer to Isis Panthea

It is not I who love, but you who love through me.

It is not I who touch, but you who touch through me.

It is not I who embrace, but you who embrace through me.

It is not I who perceive, but you who perceive through me.

It is not I who feel joy, but you who feel joy through me.

It is not I who weep, but you who weep through me.

It is not I who sorrow, but you who sorrow through me.

It is not I who rage and anguish at cruelty and injustice, but you whose righteousness is manifest both through the severity of justice the mercy of compassion who moves through me.

It is not I who reach out, but you who reach out through me.

It is not I who bring healing, but you who heal through me.

It is not my virtue through which I live in accord with Ma’at, but by you who are the heart of all virtue.

It is not I who breathe, but you who breathe through me.

It is you who are my Mother.

It is you who are my Lover.

It is you who are my Beloved.

It is you who are Sovereign of the Elements.

It is you who are Mother of the Gods.

It is you who are the Supreme Mystery whose veil none have lifted.

It is you who are both Seeker and That Which is Sought, both the Sacred Journey and its Destination.

It is not I who live, but you who live through me.

When I breathe my last breath, It is not I who shall die, but you who shall pass through the Gates of Death and it is not I who shall be reborn, but you who shall be reborn again to participate in the Great Dance, you who are dancer, the stage, and song.

Praise unto you Mother Isis, you who are my Guide, my Wisdom, and none other than my own Divine Self.

In the Name of Isis Myrionymos - An Offertory Rite

Roman Isis

This rite is one I have been using, in one form or another, for a few years and is one that is built, structurally and conceptually, upon that which is found in Jason Miller's (Inominandom's) writings in both his The Sorcerer's Secrets Book and Strategic Sorcery Course. Taking inspiration from the above works, I have, as any magician worth their salt is wont to do, reworked the rite so that it is in more direct alignment my personal spiritual/magickal practice and paradigm.

This rite is presented, not as a piece of reconstructed ancient praxis, but as the work of a practicing magician and mystic dedicated to the Goddess Isis. The theology underlying this rite is that of theistic monism/panentheism though a practitioner with a more hard-polytheistic theology can use this rite in a henotheistic theological framework just as easily.

The gods are bigger than our traditions, theologies and cosmologies, so allow yourself to experience the rite and draw your own conclusions via your own gnosis.

This rite is both an offering to Isis as well as an offering to all spirits both benign and malevolent, allies and enemies, in Her name. In my experience, making offerings in a great god's name, or even self-identifying as a god (directly as in when one assumes a godform or via implication within the language of a rite) grants the magician great spiritual authority and cools the wrath of angry spirits who, though ill-disposed to the magician, respect the authority of dominion of the deity in question.

What you will need for the rite:

1 Pillar or other tall, long-burning candle (6"-9" or larger is best). The candle should be white, sky-blue, emerald, or turquoise. I prefer white because this candle represents both the Goddess Isis as separate, sovereign Goddess as well as Isis as immanent Ground of Being and Self of the magician/priest(ess).

Carve the following symbols on the candle:

The symbolism is multivalent for each of these images, but, for the purposes of this rite, their meaning is in the captions below. While carving the image, concentrate on the meaning of the symbol in question. Note on the symbol of Sirius/Sopdet below. Feel free to carve only the 5-pointed star image of Sirius/Sopdet alone if the full hieroglyph is too unwieldy.

Ankh - Symbol of eternal life, spiritual authority, and protection

Throne of Isis - Symbol of Isis as Ground of Being

Sirius/Sopdet - Sacred star of Goddess Isis

Heka - Symbol of magickal power

Anoint the candle with an altar oil containing oils and scents (at least largely) sacred  to Isis such as lotus, balsam, amber oil, cedarwood, sandalwood, cinnamon, myrrh, and sweet orange. Abramelin oil is an all-around good choice.

Place the candle centrally on the altar Place any and all offerings to be made between yourself and the central candle as altar space allows.

*

Begin by creating Sacred Space in the manner in which you are most familiar/comfortable.
Calm yourself via rhythmic breath, meditative focus, or self-hypnotic/trance process. Consider that you are entering into a "space between", a liminal space between the worlds so as to commune with gods and spirits.

Contemplate for a moment, your sacred space as a timeless/eternal moment, the "Zep Tepi" or "First Time/Occasion", if you will, the very moment of Creation/Being Itself.

Invocation of Isis

O Great Isis, Nutjeret Weret, thou who art Mother of the Gods, Sovereign of the Elements, Foundation of the the Created Order, First Born Daughter of The Timeless Void, Lady of the Sky, the Earth, the Underworld, the Water, the Mountains, and the Nun, I beseech thee to heed my invocation.

O Isis Myrionymos, Beautiful in All Thy Names,

I call Thee with the breath of my body,

I call Thee with the beat of my heart,

I call Thee with the pulse of my life,

I call Thee with the words of my mouth,

I call Thee with the thoughts of my mind.

I call Thee Power and Life and Creation.1

I call upon thee...

Isis Panthea (Isis as All-Goddess....Her aspect as All in All, the Alpha and the Omega)

Isis Nepherses (Isis of the Beautiful Throne...Her aspect as foundation of Creation, Immanent Divinity)

Isis Melaenis  (Isis the Dark One....cthonic/underworld aspect)

Isis Psychopompos (Isis the Guide of Souls...underworld/liminal aspect)

Isis Phosphoros (Isis the Light Bringer....liminal/solar aspect)

Isis Pansotera  (Isis the Savior of All...solar/transcendent aspect)

Isis Pantokrator (Isis the Goddess of All Things/All Ruling... Isis as Sovereign Divinity)

*

Light the candle specifically consecrated to Goddess Isis saying aloud  7 times either in the original Latin or in English (once for each of the sacred directions North, East, South, West, Above, Below, and Within and the Seven Classical Planets):

Una, quae es omnia, Dea Isis
(OOH-NAH KWAY ES OHM-knee-uh DEE-uh EES EES)

“Being One, Thou art all, Goddess Isis.” (English translation from the Latin)

Draw an ankh with the index finger of your dominant hand over the candle flame, saying:

Isis Panthea, unto you All-Mother, Beloved One, Divine Self do I make all offerings and in thy name do I offer unto others these gifts. Great Mother, smile upon this rite and bless all who choose to attend.

(Allow yourself to feel gratitude)

Purification of Offerings

(To be done with each offering)

Place hands in the shape of the Triangle of Manifestation with palms directly over the offering.

Say the following (while imagining, utilizing as many senses as possible, the elemental power flowing over and cleansing the offering):

By Earth, the Body of Isis (visualize a great mountain range...involve any senses you can...all impurities are crushed and transformed under the immensity of Earth)

By Air, the Breath of Isis (visualize strong breezes blowing the leaves of trees....involve any senses you can...all impurities are blown/borne away by Air)

By Water, Her Flowing Blood (visualize a wave tossed ocean or perhaps a river...involve any senses you can....all impurities are washed away by Water)

By Fire, Her Everlasting Spirit (visualize a conflagration....involve any senses you can...all impurities are burned away)

The Invitation

Ave (Hail or Greetings) Angelos! Ave Daemones! Ave Daimones!

Come! Come!

Ave Perfected and Timeless Ones!
Come! Come!

Ave Ancient, Holy, and Shining Ones!
Come Come!

Ave Elysian Powers and Duat's Hosts!Come! Come!

Ave Tutulary Spirits, Friends, Guardians and Guides!
Come! Come!

Ave Salamanders and Spirits of Flame!
Come! Come!

Ave Sylphs and Spirits of Air!
Come! Come!

Ave Undines and Spirits of Water!
Come! Come!

Ave Gnomes and Spirits of Earth!
Come! Come!

Ave Spirits of Place and Sleepers Within the Land!
Come! Come!

Ave Restless Spectres and Unquiet Dead!
Come! Come!

Ave Eidolons of Ill Will, Wrathful Spirits, Gods, and Hungry Ghosts!
Come! Come!

Ave! Ave! Come and be welcome! Be Seated at the table set forth for you in the name of Isis Panthea, Queen of Heaven, Earth and the Underworld, and in her name partake of these offerings, allowing them to become that which is your heart's desire.

May these offerings cause there to be continued amity between myself and those spirits who are friend, guide, guard and ally unto me. May those spirits tasked with doing my will, either as boon gift or in the spirit of reciprocity, make haste manifesting that which I desire.

May these offerings cause peace to flourish between myself and those spirits, gods, and wights from whom, through my carelessness, ignorance or laziness I have earned enmity or wrath. May their hearts be softened toward me and may their be understanding between us.

Ave! Ave! Welcome guests! Partake of this bounty, eat thy fill and be sated.

In the spirit of hospitality do I forgive all debts and ask that my debts be forgiven me.

Making the Offering

If you are offering incense, light it at this time. Nag Champa and Song of India's "Indian Temple Incense" make fine offerings for this rite, but feel free to choose according to your own desires and experience.

Place your hands, cupped over your offering(s) in the following gesture. Say the following while visualizing the essence of the offerings arising into your cupped hands and then overflowing from your upturned palms (I generally see this as a vaporous silvery-white mist):

May these offerings, multiplied infinitely by the power of Aether... arise to the Celestial Heavens (see the essence of the offering((s) rise into the sky, filling it).

May these offerings pervade this Earthy Sphere, the land, sea, and sky (see the essence of the offering(s) filling the material world).

May these offerings descend into the Cthonic Deeps of the Underworld (see the essence of the offering(s) descending beneath your feet deep into the earth).

May this (these) offering(s) be transformed into that which is most pleasing to all who deign to share in this bounty.

After speaking these words, take each offering and lift it up, presenting it in a sense, to the entire space in a sunward (clockwise) direction either walking the circumference of your sacred space or, if space is limited, pivoting from direction to direction.

Say in a joyful and generous spirit:

Ave! Ave! Partake! Partake all ye gods, daimons, daemons, land-wights, elementals, and shades.
ENOIGESAN AI PYLAI TOU OURANOU!
(open the pylons of the heavens)
Visualize the heavens opening up over your head, all the heavenly realms open to you.

ENOIGESAN AI PYLAI TOU CHTHONOS!
(open the pylons of the earth)
Visualize the earth opening up beneath your feet, all of the Underworld opens to you.

PASAI DYNAMEIS HYMNEITE XAIPETE SYN EMOI!
(rejoice with me all the powers) 2

Enjoy! Enjoy and take your fill!
(Allow yourself to feel gratitude and try to sense the gratitude of those in attendance.)

Dismissal

Honored guests at my table, the time of our communion is at an end. Take your fill and leave in peace.

Wait the span of a few breaths.

Ave atque vale! (I salute you...and goodbye) This rite is done. 

Allies, guides, guards, and friends may this (these) shared gift(s) strengthen the bonds of respect, alliance, and trust between us. 
Ave atque vale! This rite is done.

Honored guests who have come in wrath, fear, or mistrust be at peace. May trust, respect and understanding bloom between us.
Ave atque vale! This rite is done.

Return unto your abodes with my gratitude ye wanderers, ye shades, ye ancient and shining ones. Go with my blessing which I offer in the name of...

Isis Panthea, She who is All in All

Isis Psychopompus, Goddess of the Threshold and Guide of Souls

and Isis Pantokrator, All-Sovereign Mother

Be blessed! Be Blessed!
Ave atque vale!
This rite is done.
So mote it be! (...just because I prefer this closing. Choose another phrasing if preferred)

Snuff or blow-out the candle as appropriate for your path/tradition. 

Now that the rite has concluded, feel free to sit in meditation in the space, being open to all experience and awareness. 


1 Borrowed directly from Isis Magic by Isidora Forrest
2 Borrowed directly from the Strategic Sorcery Course by Jason Miller

Thoughts on Magick, Mysticsm and Their Meeting in the Place of Devotion

Altar of Devotion By Rassouli

"O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now,
Be all – worlds dissolve into your
stainless endless radiance,
Frail living leaves burn with your brighter
than cold stares –
Make me your servant, your breath, your core."
-Rumi


Though it is often packaged as such in books geared to both a New Age and Pagan audience, spirituality is not merely an assortment of self-help concepts, processes and techniques presented in a flowery, mysterious, or inspiring manner (depending on the audience in question) and dressed up in mythic drag (being granted gravitas via a sense antiquity), true spirituality is instead about service to something higher than one's ego-self. In its healthiest manifestations, spiritual practice can, and often does, bring about profound and healing changes in both body and mind via the power of changed perception, healthier patterns of thought, diminished stress, the release of psychic baggage and an overall health promoting attitudinal adjustment.

The known beneficial effects of spiritual practice are most notable for those who, against the prevailing point of view of pop-spirituality, choose to ignore, consciously set aside, and temporarily forget these benefits when stepping in front of the altar. Seeing the healing, comforting, uplifting, and beneficial qualities of one's spiritual practice as primary, as opposed to as the side-effects of proper practice, is to place the cart firmly before the horse. To approach one's spiritual practice from a place of "lust for results" as opposed to a place of mystical relationship is to cause one's self long-term suffering in the form of wordless emptiness, an endless grasping and hunger for the shiny and the novel, and an endless seeking but never finding. The real secret is to approach one's spiritual practice from a place of self-less-ness or true self abnegation (ie. surrender). In doing so, the benefits of spiritual practice more easily manifest.

Paradoxically, by removing one's self from the equation via an attitude of self-forgetting when performing one's spiritual practices, one is immediately placed in a state of greater alignment, and therefore communion, with one's greater Self (Higher Self, HGA, Atman, Osiris, Christ, Isis, Horus, The Beloved, etc.) which is the very same Self partaken of by all things. As it has been said, "you must lose yourself in order to find your Self."

Not surprisingly, a magician may find himself initially recoiling from the idea of surrender. Early on, we learn that to be a magician is to be powerful and empowered. We learn to exert our intention and manifest our desires via the techniques of magick. Surrender is for the weak (ie. the religious). In some contexts this attitude would be correct. However, in this case, such an attitude toward the concept of surrender is wrong-headed and limiting. In the context of magickally sound devotional spirituality, self-abnegation can be seen as an act great power and will. It is no small thing, via an act of magickal will, to push aside the grasping selfishness of the ego so as to make room for the manifestation, within the magician, of his or her higher nature. To approach the concept surrender from the place of realizing that the "Will of the Gods" is none other than one's "True Will", the Will that transcends the ephemeral, is wisdom not weakness.

The realigning of attitude achieved through proper spiritual practice is something that is most vividly seen in the act of making non-reciprocal devotional offerings to one's God(s). The act of giving via taking one's time choosing and obtaining the appropriate offering(s), the implied power dynamic of the "lesser" offering service or gifts to the "greater" out of love, with no thought of personal gain, the act of unbesmirched self-offering, pushes the ego directly off the game board thereby leaving room for the reflection of that which is being served to expand within the magician. This happens naturally and effortlessly. If it is forced, devotion fails, becoming an act of ego-service as opposed to an edifying spiritual act.

Devotional practice is not about slavish obeisance to a power or powers beyond one's self, but is instead about alignment, the alignment of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The power of alignment, of aligning the self with the Divine, the self with the Self, naturally brings about a state of harmony and balance. As dissonance becomes resonance one experiences greater psychological wholeness, spiritual elevation and the healing of psychic complexes buried deep within the subconscious mind. Harmony and balance, the alchemy that takes place as the microcosm is consciously aligned to the Macrocosm creates emotional, psychological and spiritual health.

Acts of spiritual devotion are, via the attitude of consciously choosing to give of one's self, one's energy and one's intention, magickal in nature. Acts of spiritual devotion are also, via the kenotic nature of true devotional practice, acts of mysticism. The magick, through intent, action and conscious choice, makes room in the practitioner's consciousness for the work of the mystic, via kenosis, which invites (not commands) the effects of the unforced, natural Grace (the freely offered gift of the gods). In time, the Grace bestowed by proper alignment allows the self to realize the Self, the mortal to immanentize the Divine.

Thus are magick and mysticism made one in love.