Horsing Tools and Techniques
Whether we are choosing to work with deities and spirits, or we long to dive into the shadow roles that walk the back of our mind, there are some common tools and techniques that can be used. This is not a comprehensive list, and should not be treated as complete teaching system, but as a set of concepts to consider if you are going to be doing this work anyway. These are just some ideas that are useful.
Ground Crew
Much like the Guide in a scene with altered states of consciousness, ground crew are those who are not in an altered state, but will be assisting the scene or ritual in some way beyond acting as a Guide for the Journeyer.
The roles of the ground crew can include:
Taking care of the physical needs of the Horse/human being ridden/person entering into a deep role
Being a lore-master, aware of what the needs of the deity or character are likely to be and how to plan the best possible ritual
Serving to interact with the deity or provide service to them so that proper respect or protocol is followed
Stunt partner, to fill in with kink skills or sexual service needed for the ritual workings
Energy technician, to help prep the space for the ritual, deal with “unwanted guests” from the astral, and get the horse back into their body if needed
Majordomo, to cue the choir, serve as a ritual organizer, and deal with people who are not part of the scene
Someone to provide aftercare, or give thanks to the deity
Various other roles, depending on the ritual or scene
It’s fine not to have a ground crew—but look at how much needs to be done! Much solo work ends with issues arising that could have been so easily managed if someone had been there to assist.
Set Intention
Why are you invoking a spirit or diving into this piece of your shadow? As service to someone? For growth or to learn more about yourself? Seeking wisdom? Because that voice says it needs to come to light? Because having sex with a God or villain would be hot? To gain energy or power? To give offerings of the flesh?
Some characters from our shadow may or may not be suitable for doing Sacred Kink work with. Why are you doing this sort of combination specifically? So it is for spirits and deities. Some may get a kick out of being involved in a Sacred Kink scene, and others will be upset or offended by it. There are persons that would argue that it does not matter if you are calling to Bob the Builder or Thor, what matters if it has personal significance or meaning to you. If that is your feeling, make that abundantly clear to the spirits when calling them.
Planning
Thinking through your “why” and sharing it with everyone will help assure that everyone is on the same page and is ready to start planning to make something happen. Going through all of the negotiation steps from Chapter 2 is part of this planning. If one person is designing a scene because it would be hot porn to enact sex with a God, and the other person wants to do an actual offering to their deity, you may need to find compromise and clear up what will work for everyone. Examine the negotiation for ulterior motives that need to be voiced, and work out every person’s roles and responsibilities for simple and complex scenes alike.
With that set, look at how you will make sure this ritual, time, and type of working is appropriate to what you want to do. How formal will it be? Organic, funny, formal, High Magic with scripts and costumes, quiet meditation? Will it be private or public? Between two people, or with three hundred followers whipping themselves into an orgiastic frenzy?
Then we have the physical concerns: Do we have a checklist of what needs to happen pre-scene? Food, water, medications, bathroom breaks, props purchased? Is the space appropriate? Will it be in a bedroom, public circle, dungeon, out in the woods? If the ritual involves sex, will the moans cause a noise problem? The screams? Do we need to warn the other people in the play space what is going to happen? The other people at the pagan event?
Places to start, as of the time of publication, are listed in the resources section for more concepts to consider when planning.
Checking In
On the day of the ritual, make sure everyone is still on board. Does the plan still make sense? Is everyone here? Can the Priestess for the rite still do the work, given that she and the Horse broke up last weekend? Are all the props here? If dragon’s blood wasn’t available at the bodega, will amber resin work in a pinch? If your Nazi scene required uniforms, did everyone bring theirs?
Grounding
Who are you? What makes you, you? Find yourself in the here and now, and set a baseline for where to return to at the end of your workings. If you don’t know who you are, how can you come back to being yourself when the spirit has left? Think of it as plotting your point on a map. If you will be going into the shadow, or opening up the shape of your astral self, you need to know where to return to on the map after your journey is complete.
Confirm Intention
Ideally, state your intention out loud in a format appropriate to the tone of the ritual, or make it a firm image in your mind. Why are we doing this working? Stating it out loud reminds everyone involved why they are here.
Set the Space
This goes beyond décor. Make sure that everyone has left their emotional baggage outside, and energetically cleanse the space and everyone involved. Set up the boundaries and wards, lock the doors, or clear the heavy scene with the party hosts in advance so that nothing unexpected enters or leaves. Cast your circle, lay out your tools, set up icons, light candles, or take a deep breath. Dig your feet into this place and take it in.
For ritual work specifically, this can involve various forms of “opening” the space energetically. Calling the quarters, hailing the watchtowers, invoking the holy names, putting on the music you only use for this sort of play. Blessing the room and those in attendance before reading from the Torah. Opening up the veil between the shadow or spirit realms. Giving thanks to Ganesh before an undertaking. In short, we are asking for protection and support for us, this space, and this work, in whatever way feels most appropriate to you.
Offerings
More important for some spirit work than others, many spirits appreciate offerings. Making offerings can also set the mood for the work to be done and help everyone get into headspace. Drink, food, songs, written words, thoughts, pictures, gifts, 5-fold kisses, blood sacrifices, and various forms of sexual activity might be appropriate depending on who or what is being invoked.
Transformation
We transform the body of the Horse or person doing role-work and their surroundings to make way for the spirit or persona to ride. Donning wardrobe or ceremonial garb, applying makeup, carrying power objects, all help create correspondences, and in some cases are done in advance of setting the space. This is about creating a ritual that will simultaneously alter the consciousness of the Horse (and sometimes others in the space as needed), but also attract the spirit in question. Assuming specific body poses, chanting, singing, dancing, drinking or eating specific foods that the deity enjoys, engaging in kink or sexual activity that is appropriate, addressing the person as if they were the persona they are taking on and thinking in the ways that persona would think, are all potentially useful for transformation.
Being Ridden
At this point, stuff happens. Sometimes stuff goes exactly as planned, and other times, it’s a surprise. The degree with which the spirit manifests varies. The Horse may have the information from the spirit, speaking or writing things not possibly known to the Horse, in long flowing speeches; they may have fragments of words, or they may only have gibberish. They may sit around, or they may have the energy and capacity to do extraordinary feats. Everyone in the room may feel a shock wave as the God descends and instinctively falls to their knees, or the spirit may only just look out through the Horse’s eyes and no one can tell.
One of the difficulties with Horsing is that for the most part, spirits color with your crayons. If a spirit descends into
a devout Christian, they may only be able to say they are an angel, because that is the only word in the human’s brain they can point at. The more information your mind has access; the more spirits are able to do with what is there. Yes, spirits can overcome limitations, but it takes more time and energy on their part, something available only during more powerful spirit manifestations.
Different horsings also have different levels of control that the individual serving as the Horse is able to exert once the spirit has entered them. Some retain complete control, with the spirit whispering to them what to do or what to share. Others retain partial control, sitting in the passenger seat of their car, able to grab the wheel if they might crash. Some end up in the back seat, able to give information and suggestions, but beyond that are just along for the ride. And, every once in a while, the Horse’s consciousness ends up in the trunk or kicked out of the car entirely, left wherever they picked up the spirit. If this sort of “trunk” experience happens when doing role-work, or in general, it is of deep importance to look at our complete mental health as there may be other concerns, as well as to address consent issues for all parties involved. If you cannot remember what took place, it is hard to consent to those activities. This is similar to someone who was drugged and cannot remember what they did and is a form of consent violation.
This means that sometimes, a riding spirit may do things that “we wouldn’t have done otherwise.” Some Gods may encourage fertility rites and thus not want to use condoms, a spirit may have a relationship with a person you don’t know and want to play with them, they may pass on words from the other side of the grave to someone not even part of the ritual. It happens sometimes. But it does not excuse the behavior. “Ereshkigal made me do it” does not cut it in court or in most social circles. This is what ground crew are for. They can lovingly beg the lady of the lands below to not do an activity, intercede on behalf of those involved (including the Horse), or guide her in some way to some other activity, if possible. If you tend to lose all memory, having ground crew is vital. If you don’t, learn to negotiate with the spirit—it is your body after all!
And then, sometimes, nothing happens. To be honest, that happens a fair amount of the time. You call and call and call, and all you get is cosmic voice mail. And after all that work! Don’t sweat it. Leave the message. Send your energy and love up. Spend some time venerating the Horse as a living icon of the divine. If there is a big audience, do archetypal work involving that deity, and put on a modest but inspirational show that will continue to bring honor to the deity. And go on with life. It is no one’s fault. It happens. Don’t fake it and say it really happened; it’s okay, it happens a lot.
Return
Reverse the steps of the Transformation. Get out of your wardrobe, makeup, and set down the props as necessary. If this involves pageantry, may have to wait until aftercare. The main goal is to have a ritual that brings the Horse (and others) out of their altered state of consciousness and back to normalcy.
Give Thanks
Thank the spirits who showed up, and those who did not but were invited. Close the circle, say goodbye to the gatekeepers, and thank all the humans who helped out. Thank the horse for their work. Thank anyone or anything else who needs to be thanked.
Grounding and Centering
Come back to the self. Come back to what makes you, you. Shake free of remnants of the persona. Remember that you are rooted back in yourself and breathe into the core sense of what is you.
If the persona or spirit clings on, institute means with which to encourage or even force the spirit to leave. If anyone else has been possessed, get rid of the unwanted rider. Tools for encouraging a spirit to leave include:
Asking the spirit to leave
Telling the spirit how much better it would be for them somewhere else
Pressing down on pressure points
Calling the human by their full or mundane/legal name
Throwing a white sheet over their head
Dumping a bucket of cold water over them
Banishment spells (considered rude if you have not asked them to leave first)
Eliciting assistance from someone who is kink-friendly that has experience with spirits, deep role-work, or from the person who needs help coming back to themselves.
You have the right to ask uninvited guests to leave, or even kick them out. You also have the right to lovingly ask house guests who have overstayed their visit to go home and maybe come back some other time. Knowing of self-identity allows knowing when a role is still a role, and how to get back to you.
Aftercare
Physically leave the ritual space. Make sure the Horse uses the bathroom, drinks water, eats something healthy and preferably high in protein. This work may not seem intense right afterwards for some Horses, but it can sneak up like a sunburn, the drain or pain or rising to the surface after an hour or two out of the sun. Sometimes, the nature of what has happened comes immediately, and other times it takes a few hours or days to fully realize what has happened. At that time, some may need to have a good friend, Priest/ess, or partner to talk through their feelings of what took place.
Check In
Before engaging in this work again, it is vitally important for everyone involved (or at least the Horse, ground crew and major players if it was a large production) be tracked down and debriefed. How did it go? What does the Horse remember? Fill them in on what they don’t remember. Is everyone okay? Has anyone heard from the spirit since then? What effects have happened as a result of the work? Was the intention or goal of our work met? And of course – what’s next?
Connections and Concerns
When we do recurring work with the same spirit along the Path of the Horse, a spectrum of relationships and connections can form, just as they can when we play deeply with the same person doing Sacred Kink scenes. This is also the case when we have even one intense experience that blows us away. Some of this has been discussed in the “Divine Consort” section of the Path of the Flesh, but there are other potential connections.
Examples of connections I have seen or heard of within the various spirit work groups:
Soul Braids
Where two or more entities, paths, or souls are entwined within an individual, or where multiple individuals all dedicated to one spirit or deity have their lives entwined with one another as part of that service.
Dedication
Where an individual pledges all or part of their life or work to the honor or service of a spirit.
Marriage
Be they to the fae, Loa, someone deceased, or a deity. Some groups engage in post-mortem marriage to ensure the honored dead can go to heaven, while others are pure romance, often in both directions. Just like in the mortal world, some marriages are monogamous, and others are not, with multiple spouses of one spirit working together to do work in their loved one’s name.
Slavery
Where the God Slave enters into a contractual relationship of service or being property to the deity (verbal, written, or energetic), to be used as the deity sees fit or as the contract dictates.
Servant
Where the individual fills a specific role as page, chaplain, priest, nun, god servant, monk, or lore-master for a deity, and commits part or all of their energy to filling that role.
Family
Becoming the sister, brother, son, daughter, or other familial relationship to a deity. The format of these vary as much as the differences between all parents, children, or siblings. Some are loving, some adversarial, some tender, some angst prone, some committed. Long term friends are part of this category.
Shard, or Incarnation
Where part of the deity or spirit takes part (or all) of their consciousness and reincarnates into the offering body. Post-birth incarnation is incredibly rare, but post-birth shards have been known to happen, especially when the offering human has suffered serious soul or energetic loss.
When engaging in a long-term relationship with a spirit
, take a moment to consider the ramifications of that interaction. Though we can have spur-of-the-moment Vegas weddings, it will affect us and our world in the morning. Divorce may not exist within their world-view, and passing promises in such connections might be taken literally.
We each form relationships in different ways. Sometimes we bond with someone the first time we meet, other times they creep into our heart little by little each time we connect, and once in a while we hate someone so passionately that we eventually realize we are in love. Other times, we see someone every day and work with them and never form a lasting connection. Why would we expect the variety to be any different with spirits?
If you find yourself in a divine connection, just like in any mortal connection, know what the rules are. Have communication, if at all possible. Sometimes the answers come in the form of our intuition, that part of us that hears the secrets of the universe and whispers them to us in dream or passion. If your relationship involves any sort of blanket consent, such as “you may claim my body and ride me at any time,” this may be something worth mentioning to lovers and play partners. Consider as well how such offers will affect your life, career, family and friends.
The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond Page 30