bene helohim

Since I’ve had a few good questions about the Starry Path, I figured it was worth having another “about” post going into more detail around the Path.

What is the purpose of the Starry Path, and my purpose in exploring and sharing it?

I’m not sure it’s fair to assume there is a major teleological element to the Starry Path. That would feel too religious to me. Sure, there is a purpose to the Path, like any magickal path it’s about opening ourselves up, to perceive reality in a deeper, more complex way, and to understand that reality, and our ability to influence it. The Path is about studying, and embracing magick and spirit, but not necessarily with some clear end goal, like a favourable afterlife or reincarnation.

My “purpose” in exploring it is just that, to learn more about magick and spirit, the Cosmos and my place within it. Purpose may not apply here either, because as much as this is a path that I’m exploring, there are definitely times when it feels like I don’t have much of a choice. The spirits have made themselves known, and my options are either ignore them, or go with them. Parts of the Path are intentionally explored, other areas I’m tossed into by the spirits.

As for sharing it, that is a bit harder to explain. The Starry Path is my experience, I’m not sharing it as a religious concept for others, or a path for others to follow whole-cloth, but as a record of my experience, an example of what can happen, and yes, as a system of arcana I hope others can explore too.

In fact, the purpose in sharing is something I think I didn’t make clear enough in the past. I mentioned the Path is ecstatic and gnostic, but inseparable from that the Starry Path is at its core a tutelary Path. Something that doesn’t get talked about enough in magick is the fact that most traditions seem like they are meant to be tutelary paths, not something to be slavishly followed. It seems though as trads spread and age, things become codified, and people think of that path as only what is presented to them. I love my encounters with these spirits, what they have shown and done for me, and I love hearing from people who have tried things from the Path…but if I ever meet anyone who is following my instructions/explanations on the Starry Path and that’s it, they haven’t moved beyond that, then they are doing the Path wrong.

The spirits I introduce aren’t meant to be merely summoned for a task and sent off, they are the teachers of the Path. Part of the Starry Path is accepting the spirits as teachers and guides. They know far more about it than I ever will. The Starry Path is meant to establish connection, and give a Path to walk, but it’s to be a guide. To paraphrase Chumbley “Confuse not the Path, with what I have written on it.” If you’re trying out stuff that I post, and not learning directly from the spirits as you go, then you need to slow down and engage them. It’s a tutelary path, learn from the spirits, innovate, and explore, do not just follow what you hear from me or others.

Are these new spirits? Why do we need new gods and spirits?

They’re not new at all. It is only my exploration of the Path that is new. They have always been here, they appear across time and spirit in many traditions, only my engagement with them is new. Some of the spirits on the Path are directly in other traditions and mythologies, others are more like resonant figures, perhaps the seed of myth that has been codified. They are not new, but I’m looking at a different facet of their complex being.

As for why do we “need” these “new” spirits, that’s an individual thing. Above I mentioned how a lot of paths start off tutelary, but over time become ossified and strict. Reality bleeds into myth, and legend, experiences become “fact” and ideas become gospel. The spirits of the Path appear across the world in different times and cultures, some of the magick they teach appears in other traditions. The Starry Path was borne out of a need and desire to experience things as they are. That is where the Path being ecstatic, gnostic, and tutelary comes in. It’s an attempt to engage this magick unadulterated by mythology and culture.

Of course, there will always be contamination based on the person, and culture experiencing, but it is hoped that those are less because it’s more direct, not over long stretches of time. I won’t deny that my explanations and explorations of the Starry Path are filtered through me. But like a game of telephone, the less people it passes through, the clearer it will be.

A parallel for this is the terma tradition in Vajrayana Buddhism. In Vajrayana Buddhism it’s very important to have a lineage. For many of my major empowerments, I can track it backwards in time, from me, to Rinpoche, to his teacher, to his teacher’s teacher, and so on back to some famous Buddha or saint. Despite this emphasis on lineage though, it’s understood that overtime teachings shift, get corrupted, misunderstood, and change. A terma is a revealed teaching. It’s believed that great masters (generally Padmasambhava, but termas from other figures exist) have left behind their teachings, hidden, to be discovered later. Padmasambhava for instance taught in the 8th century, that is a long time to assume that no teacher or student has misunderstood his teachings, no one has been confused in passing it on, nothing has been lost. Foreseeing this as a problem it’s believed that Guru Padmasambhava hid teachings, termas, so that centuries later someone would find them, and “refresh” the tradition with more accurate knowledge. A few centuries pass, things shift, and someone finds a terma text, and suddenly we know how things have been misunderstood for a few centuries, and we can correct that. We’re going back to the source, rather than trusting in a centuries long game of broken telephone. Terma exist as both physical scrolls that are found, and also Mind/Space terma, which are more of a vision/revelation of the information.

In that way I think on a basic level you could compare the Starry Path to terma. It’s an attempt to look past the myths, past the ideas and opinions, past ossified concepts, and to see what was at the base of it, and bring that back out. So yes, these spirits are probably in various myths, some directly, others are vague inspirations lost in the mists of time, but with the Starry Path I’m asking them to teach me directly outside of the religion/culture that has codified them over centuries.

Is X spirit, really Y spirit?

You’ll have to ask them. In some cases there is a one-for-one link between spirits on the Path and spirit in another tradition. Sometimes one spirit was divided in myth into two or more, and sometimes two or more spirits were combined under the same name. Other times it’s a general echo, X spirit might not be Y, but stories of X may have inspired the myths of Y down the line. The webs of history and myth are subtle and abstract. Because the tradition is gnostic/tutelary, I’m not going to say who is whom in my experiences, at least not yet.

Do you have to follow these rituals in order, contact spirits in order?

Yes and no. I certainly didn’t follow the order I’m writing in. Hell I’m still sorting out experiences in the last decade that I didn’t realize where connected to the Starry Path, or experiences I thought were connected but aren’t. A few of the practices have an order they need to follow. That’s why I’m introducing the Star Fire variations first in order. You can’t create Red or Blue Salt of Star Fire, without normal Salt of Star Fire, that’s just how it works out. Put unless I specifically mention that one thing has to precede another, feel free to jump around my writings in whatever order you want. Part of what makes this difficult to write about is my experiences have not been clean and orderly over the last decade, so I was never given a “This is where you start, this is what’s next.” So I’m going back through notes and thinking things over trying to reorder my experiences and information in a way that is easier for people to pick up and follow.

Are you just going to blather on this, or actually give us some magick to do?

Don’t worry, the base is more or less laid, so soon we’ll actually be doing stuff with the Path.