by Mick Twomey
THE QUEST FOR ENGAGEMENT
I’ve happened upon a few thoughtful pieces on the subject of Initiation here and elsewhere in the last little while, notably from Dave Clifton, here in an essay called On Initiation, or from another angle, this one by Melinda, first in a series on Maze to Metanoia. It reminded me of a little piece that I wrote, oh a year or so ago (possible five years, possibly a week; Time has no more meaning), and then made a video out of, inspired by a post from the inimitable Tommie Kelly. And indeed, this may chime well with some of the more recent avenues he’s been exploring on Adventures in Woo-Woo … (you can also see a more spontaneous video version of this essay here, with the added benefit of sunlight-flare and pipe-smoking!)
Now Tommie, for anyone who doesn’t know, is he of the famous and infamous Forty Servants divination deck and magic system. Tommie is someone who I admire for many reasons, but in this context, particularly this: he’s always starting interesting conversations. One might say this is merely social media strategy: a quest for engagement. However, if we look a that phrase in its more fundamental meaning, “The Quest for Engagement” is actually something rather special. I’m not talking about “engagement” with your posts or your profile, or “Hit that Like and Share and Follow Button!” (I like to attribute these sentiments to a being I call “The Werewolf Underwriter” – you know: “Lycan Sub-Scribe” …); rather, I’m talking about imagining the Quest for Engagement as something we should all be concerned with; to be engaged, to be involved, to face things, to take things on: embrace who we are, in our place in time, in our place in locality, and the responsibilities that places upon us. If we disengage from this place and time, and lose ourselves, for example in social media feeds, in the virtual, or indeed in the esoteric, the spiritual … we are disengaged. We are adrift.
So I mean NOT engagement with your “content”, engagement with your WORLD. We need to take that word back. There are some people who cynically manipulate algorithms to “drive traffic”; if you want to direct traffic, go and stand at the Crossroads! Many people engage in behaviours calculated to generate Clicks and Likes, but they’re also doing this other thing too: they’re challenging people to engage with the world around them, not just with the world inside the screen … Through the Black Looking-Glass …
Now, with that Preamble out of the way, we can move on to …
THE NATURE OF INITIATION
To me, it is a step across the Threshold, a taking-on of a new form of attention to the World: hard to go back upon, hard to rescind. Once taken, nothing can ever be the same. Best done in full knowledge and conscience of what the implications are, and I imagine even better done with a structure and support around one, from others further along on the Path one has chosen.
I had neither luxury: I was alone and unprepared; I did not fully measure the import of what was happening, or the responsibility I was taking on; I had no guides to teach, prepare, and look out for me; I had no Order or Tradition to look to, no fellow travellers to receive me in Ritual and in Communion.
This lack of Community is, of course, very common these days. It used to be the case that Initiation was only to be gained from an Order or a Coven or a group of some kind, but solitary practice and self-initiation has become almost the norm since the ‘90s. I think it was Scott Cunningham’s Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner most prominently, along with several other authors and works, which gave people the “permission” to go it alone: you don’t need someone else to tell you’re allowed, you don’t need the seal of approval, you don’t need someone else to perform your Initiation. As with many sacraments, the person who leads or facilitates the Ritual isn’t necessarily the one who’s actually doing it. For example, in Catholic marriage a priest performs the wedding, but the priest does not administer the sacrament: the couple administers the sacrament to each other. That’s an important distinction: just because somebody is leading a ritual, or its chief celebrant, doesn’t mean that it is only in their power. They may not be the one who is actually administering the sacrament.
And so it is with Initiation. The person who might perform the Initiation, or confer the Initiation, is not the one actually enacting the Ritual. Unless, of course, you’re very tied up with ideas of lineage – which some people are. Some Traditions are very concerned with “Lineaged Initiations”, but really, it’s the person who undergoes the Initiation who is actually performing the sacrament if you want to look at it as such. I did not have other people, so I must do it myself. Of course, in my case, I didn’t even quite realize what was happening. Some people go through Self-Initiation with a lot of preparation and study and they know exactly what they’re doing; they may even be Self-Initiating into a particular Tradition.
For me, however, there was to be none of that. I had no mentors; I had nobody to show me the way. It was very confusing at times, to be honest. Even frightening. At other times it was wildly intoxicating, full of wonder. I didn’t know what was going on; all I had were little hints, scavenged pieces, bits and scraps of wisdom which I had to cobble together into something resembling a Magical Path. I didn’t even know, when I took the first steps along it, that that is what was happening. I suppose I was lucky in a way, because there were certain key stages at which people did show up; this was very strange – I think many people will have had this experience – sometimes people show up, like signposts, to point you along your path; they seem to know more about you, and about what is going on with you, than they should, or than they let on, or even than you know yourself. These people, these guides: they didn’t go with me along the path, they just sort of pointed me in the right direction at certain points and they seemed to want to give me a little bit of cryptic wisdom, or knowledge, or tech, or tool, or some little piece of Gnosis, or part of the puzzle that would help me – something that I would need along the way. It turned into a sort of quest: this long strange quest, almost like a Mystery Play at times. It seemed like these others around me somehow knew the script. They knew the play that we were in, but I didn’t, and they weren’t able or permitted to tell me anything beyond their lines in the scene that we were playing …
THE FAILURE OF INITIATION
And something terrible happened. I failed. I didn’t understand. I thought I knew the way, but I was wrong. I thought I was burning with insight and the holy fire, but I wasn’t. I was half-insane, starving, wild-eyed, haunting the night-streets of the city. I talked in riddles, but no-one else could understand them at all. I had no-one to hold me, rein me in, give me a container for my experience, my passionate energy. I was wild. I hurt people I love. Lost people I called friends. Frightened people who trusted me.
Needless to say, it was a flawed Initiation: incomplete, painful, and traumatic. But when I approached the Threshold again, as Perceval this time I knew the Grail Question to ask of the Fisher King. I had studied, practiced, fortified myself. I was prepared. But it is almost inexpressible, the pain of the first time: to be within reach of the … Thing, and to fail at the last test, and to see the light die, the gate slam shut, and to have to walk away in darkness and shame, broken. It took me some years to find my way back. I think, in all, I ended up stronger for it: sadder, wiser, and more compassionate for those who fall from the path, or get waylaid or diverted by the Fool’s Fires into the mires and standing pools and trackless byways, dead ends, Halls of Mirrors…
I see, sometimes, a raving houseless wretch upon the street; a ranting zealot; a paranoid True Believer; a haunted victim of Occult Conspiracy, and think: there, but for Grace, go I. How many lunatics and addicts and cultists are the products of an unasked-for, unprepared, un-encircled Twisted Initiation? One that this modern world and their disenchanted place in it so ill-fitted them for…? They are drawn to me sometimes, moved urgently to tell me … something. I try to listen, and pretend to understand, sometimes pass them a watchword or two I think they’ll recognise through the fog. A moment of relief, of Grace, and then they stumble on, walking wounded of a Forever War we cannot understand…
… and that could have been me. People fall into paranoia, addiction, obsession … cults. Under the influence of truly Evil leaders: figures who take advantage of the trappings of Initiation, but with none of the insight, none of the care, none of the power: instead they use it bind those to them, who are desperately seeking what they do not even understand. Hopefully, with the right circumstances and the right guidance, some people can find their way back. Many though, I fear, are lost to the Abyss: the gulf of darkness of the twisted, flawed Initiation that is mistaken for a real one.
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Michael Twomey
Gloomy Doomy Twomey
Nihilist Existentialist Hedonist
Dionysiac Hanged Horned Wolf
