John Fowles said it better than me: The great source of human energy is the Mysterious. True mysteries give more energy, more questions every time you find an answer. I truly think that searching after mysteries is the source of the immortalization of the human soul. If I ever write anything that makes someone consider that maybe they don’t know everything about everything, then I have succeeded. As soon as a mystery is explained, it ceases to be a source of energy. If we question deeply enough, there comes a point where answers, if answers could be given, would kill. We may want to dam the river, but we dam the spring at our peril. In fact, since “God” is unknowable, we cannot dam the spring of basic existential mystery. “God” is the energy of all questions and questing, and so the ultimate source of all action and volition. So it might be seen that the mystery of unknowing lies behind (and before) all motion or dynamism.
Let’s move on to the other area for which you are renowned: magic and the occult. What first kindled your interest in the esoteric?
Hmm. Hard to say. As a child I loved Dark Shadows, as a young adult I was attracted to the neo-shamanism of Carlos Castaneda, but most occultists struck me as being more asleep than even the poor fools around them. A “chance” meeting with Dr. Stephen Flowers showed me that sane and intelligent research into the esoteric was possible. Flowers introduced me both to the Temple of Set and to the Greek Magical Papyri. I did fairly well with both. Seven year after joining the Temple of Set, I was their High Priest. I later wrote a book about Set-Typhon in the magical papyri, The Seven Faces of Darkness.
Your non-fiction work has always been entrenched in the Left-Hand Path branch of occultism. This is something of a loaded term for many people, so how would you define the Left-Hand Path as it is explored in your occult books?
The Left Hand Path is the path of Non-Union. We do not seek to be at one with God or the Goddess or the Tao. We seek to exist as immortal separate essences, potent and powerful in the Cosmos. The LHP breaks with the symbol systems that cause the soul to be subservient and seeks to verify the existence and strength of the soul through the art of magic.
A symbol of the Setian Cosmos is the Pythagorean inverse pentagram in a circular field where the points of the pentagram do not touch the circle’s edge. Now the Pythagoreans thought (see, for example, Apollonius of Tyana in On the Sacrifices) that god was the supreme intellect/Nous of the Cosmos. The supreme intellect did not require prayer or sacrifice; what could a mind do with a burnt cow? But by exercising one’s own Mind/Nous/Buddhi, one couple do get to know, and hence be, like god. What better Symbol than the pentagram? The inner symbol shows the radical way thought may change (angular rather than smooth curves) and the phi ratio of the pentagram’s lines show a symmetrical and intelligent self-ordering. The five-foldness of the pentagram reveals a principle beyond the simple three-foldness of time (beginning, maintaining, passing-away) or the four-foldness of space. The pentagram (psyche) is isolated from the circle of nature, and its upstanding points exalt creation and change over the central ruling of stasis.
Silly movies like to show the LHP with the inverse pentagram, but behind the Halloween mask there is a path of spiritual dissent echoing through the millennia.
What do you consider to be the merits of the Left-Hand Path? Conversely, what are its pitfalls?
For some humans the desire to leave the campfire and search out the big, bad dark is their strongest desire. They burn with a black flame that is as intense as another’s wish for gold or sex. The Left-Hand Path gives them a chance to be themselves. But searching a path doesn’t imply success. The Left-Hand Path can lead to arrogance, delusion (“I am God”), or intolerance (“I hate fluffy bunny White Lighters!”). If approached in ignorance, it can lead to non-critical thinking, and even to superstition. Most books on magic tell you that 1) the magic is natural and 2) it is easy to do. It is neither of those things. Magic is the hardest thing to do well. It should be a complement on the rest of your life. Dr. John Dee — spy, set-designer, writer, creator of the term “British Empire” — is a good example, as his magic caps a real life full of real accomplishments. This is very different from some apartment-dwelling sorcerer with his paperbacks, crying out his spells before one o’clock so as not to bother the neighbors. As far as the “unnatural” aspect of magic, Arthur Machen put it rather well in “The White People”:
It appears to me that [sin] is simply an attempt to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner.” You can understand why it is so rare. They are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into higher spheres, higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints, and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius, who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes, on the whole , it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint.
Building upon this, I think it’s safe to say that many of the publications that claim to be Left-Hand Path seem more interested in giving off a whiff of blasphemy and brimstone than in dealing with principles or philosophy in any meaningful way. Given that, what books do you consider worthwhile primers for a novice who feels drawn toward the darker side of occultism?
Well, this is a tad self-serving, but I would recommend my own Uncle Setnakt’s Essential Guide to the Left Hand Path. For readers with an interest in Crowley and the LHP, I would point them to my new (forthcoming) book from Inner Traditions, Overthrowing the Old Gods. Two other good introductions are The Left Hand Path by Tapio Kotkavouri and The Black Ship by Malphas. These books are balanced by rational thought and stress the importance of seeking self-knowledge as the first and wisest step in immortalization of the soul. For readers interested in an historical survey of the Left Hand Path, Dr. Stephen Flowers’ Lords of the Left Hand Path can’t be beat. Flowers covers the LHP from its earliest forms in Greece, Egypt, and India through the ages and ends with an analysis of the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set. If anyone would like to listen to an interview on the topic, I talked about it in conversation with Robert Price on the Point of Inquiry podcast. See “Don Webb: Devil’s Advocate.”
Do you consider fiction — either your own or that of other authors — and magic to be connected? If so, how?
The Gospel of Thomas has some nice things to say on the subject: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
Magic is the art of changing the subjective universe so that a proportional change can occur in the objective universe. Any work of fiction that changes you is an act of magic. Some writers are able to bring the notion of the vastness and strangeness of the Cosmos deeply into the psyches of their readers. Having read them, you are changed, and are now open to drawing from the Unseen world. The writer himself need not “believe” any of it. Lovecraft, for example, was a staunch materialist, but he opens cosmic vistas to his readers. William S. Burroughs does a fine job of this as well. So does Thomas Ligotti. Leonara Carrington and C. L. Moore and are two female writers whose hems I am unworthy to touch, so great is their spell. I assembled a group of such writers for a round robin story in Fantasy and Science Fiction a while back: Walt DeBill, W.H. Pugmire, Robert M. Price, Jeffrey Thomas, and of course yourself. I’ve been a fan of your writing for some years.
Thank you. The admiration is mutual. Now, magical operations, by which I mean actions and utterances that take place under ceremonial conditions, are clearly something you’ve found beneficial. Do magical Workings act as a medium for experiences you otherwise might not have had? What would you say are the primary benefits of practicing ceremonial magic?
Ceremonial magic is about the training of the mind, the will, and the heart so that they all move together. Its strength does not lie in learning lists of strange words, drawing eldritch sigils, or burning incense at midnight. Its strength lies in creating a total environment that allows the subjec
tive universe to change. I have performed many magical Workings and have been the author of the Conclave Working for the Temple of Set fourteen times. Ceremonial magic — like writing — is based on finding the right symbols to bring forth what is within you, a mixture of both the Known and Unknown parts of yourself, and then allowing these things to add to and shape the unfolding of the Cosmos.
You and I have talked before about art and magic being dual methods of consciousness exploration. How do you define consciousness?
Consciousness is a rare thing in the universe. If you look around at your fellow humans, you will find it rarely. It is a self-reflecting, unseen power that is forced to view the physical world but also allowed to turn in on itself and create innumerable worlds of love, wonder, or terror. Consciousness brings dissatisfaction and even hatred against the galling laws of time and space. But it also brings meaning and beauty to the Cosmos. Consciousness begins the moment it becomes aware of its own responsibility: “I am driving the bus!” And it grows whenever it is sought out. Some actions, such as Art and Magic, bring energy to consciousness by allowing it space to Play. Other actions — boring jobs, mind-deadening TV, most drugs — draw energy away from consciousness. There are forces in the universe that are on the side of consciousness, but they look a little strange to the average Joe. The Trickster gods are always there to turn our consciousness up a notch.
What role do dreams play in your life, both as an author and a magician?
As a writer I have found plots and phrases in dreams. As a magician I am aware that dreams are the psyche’s way of analyzing/researching/modeling what is happening in the world. Most humans never learn to remember their dreams, and so they’re ruled by them on a daily basis. They wake up happy or sad and then live out their lives according to that script. If your readers would like a particular lesson in dream magic, they can do the following.
For four days, as you go about your daily life, ask yourself frequently, “Am I dreaming or is this waking?” Follow this by asking, “How do I know?”
Each night before going to bed, light a red candle with the name “Hypnos” carved into it in English or Greek, and view yourself in the mirror. Drink a large glass of water and say these words: “Hail Hypnos! I call you from the outer edge of infinity. Frolic with me this night. I will remember my Wyrd dreams, learn wisdom, and bless my friends!” Extinguish the candle. If you awaken anytime during the night, think about what you have dreamt. Write it down in the morning as though this is just as serious an activity as getting ready for work. If the dreams do not come during the four days, they will show up in the next week. Then learn to compliment yourself when you have an interesting dream.
If you were to recommend your own work to a new reader, what work of fiction and what work of nonfiction would you suggest they start with?
I would start with the novel Essential Saltes. It’s out of print and cheap. Back Brain Recluse will bring out my mystery novels as e-books soon. I have a Wildside Double out, The War with the Belatrin/A Velvet of Vampyres, that’s half space opera and half vampire fiction. I am trying to sell a large collection of my Lovecraftian fiction, which is pretty cool. Of my nonfiction, I am very happy with Overthrowing the Old Gods, and I enjoy my aforementioned book on the Greek Magical Papyri, The Seven Faces of Darkness.
As usual, Don, you have given us much to reflect upon. Thank you for these gifts.
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About Don Webb
Don Webb was born on April 30, 1960. In 2014 Hippocampus Press will release a 30 year retrospective of his Cthulhu Mythos stories. He teaches creative writing for UCLA Extension, loves to write and can be found [email protected]. He is an expert on modern occultism.
Also by Don on Kindle
A Velvet of Vampyres
Overthrowing the Old Gods
Connect with Don Online
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/don.webb.986?sk=info&edit=eduwork
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Webb/e/B000APUMN0
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The Cellar Gods
Jeffrey Thomas
“The Cellar Gods” was first published in the 2002 anthology New Mythos Legends, and is reprinted in Jeffrey Thomas’s collection “Unholy Dimensions.
I
Ng was beautiful. It was not that I was so lacking in prejudice toward those strange, silent tenants of the brick warehouse, not that I was unafraid of them when the rest of the town let their fear turn to rage. I was too weak to save the others, but it was a weakness that made me save her. It was simply this: that Ng was beautiful.
I still can’t say, with any certainty, where she they – came from. They were oriental, at least in physical resemblance. Even today, over fifty years later, with the world so much smaller, more intimate, with most its mysterious shadowed corners lit by the bland light of cathode rays, I have never learned of her origins. I have watched documentaries, pored over crumbling tomes and glossy copies of National Geographic. A few hints just broken shards of myth like fragments of ancient pottery, dinosaur bones that cannot be assembled; rumors of a place called Leng, and of a place called the Dreamlands which could be reached by shamans only, through astral projection, the ritual use of drugs, or death. Whether this was truly an actual place, on this plane or another, or merely a state of mind, one might not tell from these obliterated legends. But I think I know the truth.
The most Ng told me herself was that she came from “the cold waste”. She was not as stocky and broad faced as an Eskimo, though I might have believed some of the others to be that. Ng spoke broken English, as some of those mysterious laborers did, so that they might interact with the people of Eastborough to some limited, unavoidable extent. They had purchased a small brick warehouse composed of two stories and a basement, close to the train tracks, where freight was unloaded and carried into the building, or vice versa, though what lay inside those heavy wooden crates and sealed metal drums we never learned; at the time the warehouse was burned, it was found to be largely emptied. At least, that is what was said. If that vengeful little mob did in fact find such freight stored within, and opened it to reveal its secrets, then those contents were either so meaningless – or so horrible that the information was never revealed.
Later, there was a tannery on that spot. It, too, burned, though the cause of that conflagration was a mystery. There is a retirement complex on the spot now, and the trains no longer use that stretch of track, so that it lies covered in the woods on the outskirts of Eastborough Swamp, into which some people have ventured and never returned, said to be swallowed in quicksand, or abducted by the UFOs teen agers have claimed to see, or done some evil by the ghosts of the thirty oriental laborers murdered on that night in 1944.
The war was not yet over; it was the time of Yellow Peril, not of New World Order. Not to excuse the actions of the clan who descended on that warehouse to murder those who worked and dwelled within. But I will say this: during the war, much was said to portray the Japanese as monsters, fiends, demons straight out of hell. We know now that the Japanese are only as vile as ourselves. But Ng’s people and yes, I still shudder to imagine their fates, and I wonder if Ng was not the only one of them capable of tenderness – well, if fragments and whispers are to be taken as more than just similar propaganda...then the things said about the Japanese might in their case be far more fitting.
I am an old man now, and I will never live in that retirement complex. How much of the delirium of its tenants, thought to be senility, might be caused by ghostly possession, poison vibrations, the stain of sins both brutally human and horribly alien? I, myself, would rather die in an alley.
I was twenty in 1944. My epilepsy, though mild, had kept me out of the war, and I was attending college in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts, pursuing a career in medicine. I felt fortunate then, but in retrospect I think I would have preferred to go to war; to have witnessed merely terrestrial horrors; just blood spilt, just flesh torn. Not dimensions rent, not the black belly of t
he cosmos incised and peeled back in dissection. But then...but then...I would never have known Ng.
II
I worked weekends in a small grocery, and had as much contact with the mysterious foreigners as anyone in town did. Ng had come in before, and I couldn’t help but notice her. Her face was round, the lips of her small mouth full, her teeth when she would politely, shyly smile – crooked but white and appealing. Her eyes with their oriental fold were neat slits as if cut in the smooth paper mask of her face, slits from out of which those eyes gazed with a dark sheen. Her hair was glossy and straight, usually gathered in a braid in back, but sometimes flowing free about her slight, girlish shoulders. Though my age, she was as small and slim as a child.
One day she entered the tiny market with a companion; briskly they selected the items on their list, then came to the counter. At once I noticed Ng’s hand was crudely bandaged in a dirty white rag, this stained deeply with blood. “What happened to you?” I asked with straightforward concern, gesturing at her swaddled limb.
The young woman shrugged and averted her gaze with embarrassment. “Cut hand working.”
“Well, you should have it looked after. Here, come around here. Don’t be afraid; I’m going to school to become a doctor. Let me have a look at it...dress it properly, at least.”
Ng threw a doubtful look at her companion, a stern faced older woman I had also seen before, and who never smiled. She was all the more unappealing for the deep fissure of a scar which ran down the center of her forehead, even extending down the bridge of her nose, as if she had miraculously survived a catastrophic axe wound to the skull. The woman grunted unpleasantly, but I persisted boldly, taking the younger woman’s slim forearm.
Cthulhu Mythos Writers Sampler 2013 Page 3