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The Witchmark and Blood Offering

Posted in Paganism, The Path of Flames with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2013 by Sypheara

This entry is going to be more personal than the previous, and due to it’s nature I can’t possibly put everything into this post in an objective manner.

Yesterday was a very special day for me, as it was the day that finally, after several years of research and practice I went ahead with a very important work, one which seals all my initiatory work up to this point and marks the beginning of a whole new phase for me.

This work I speak of was planned awhile ago, with not a small amount of trepidation involved. For three years up until that fateful point several months ago, I had approached the Gods and conducted several works with them, mini initiations which  brought me closer to identifying their energies, and aligning myself to them as someone who felt called to interact with them.

As these initiations guided me to my current path, I slowly began to learn that a true sacrifice was necessary outside of these small dedicatory rituals. True initiation, one would say, into the path I was being called upon to practice.

It was then I came across the notion of the Witchmark within my own tradition. Whilst a quick google would probably indicate to the reader this ideacame from the idea of the ‘Devils Mark’, this is not the case. This ‘mark’ is a physical mark on the body which is believed causes a corresponding mark on the soul of the person who receives it, serving as a first true initiation. The mark itself takes the form of a sigil of some kind, usually a primary one, and it is usually tattooed or scarified into the skin. This is more akin to the beliefs held by many pagan people in the past, where marking the skin for similar purpose is  shown to exist across many different cultures.

I’ll briefly divert to explain an important concept to be able to understand the importance of this as far as my own tradition goes, and it touches a subject again many don’t like to talk too openly about.

This subject is using blood offerings. It’s important to note that my own tradition sees the bodily fluids of the practitioner as being vessels for not only ones own essence, will and spirit but also that of any entities which are working through that person in possession at the time they are extracted. When coupled with my belief in the importance of personal sacrifice in works with the Gods and the concept of ‘you don’t get something for nothing’,  i’ts easy to see why the necessity of using my own blood in ritual became obvious to me.

By using  blood as both tool and offering,  we give actual power through it into our workings. This is where my (albeit limited) knowledge and respect of folk magical traditions come to the fore and what it has to say on this matter; I do not believe that, as many modern day pagans and occultists do, that such components only have psychological value. I contend they have a very spiritual and physical effect from the workings I have done that makes it a vital component in the majority of workings.  This view is relatively unpopular in many circles today (pardon the pun), but is one that makes any discussion on the Witchmark vital to understand from my own perspective, and thus unavoidable in this post.

Despite this, the the leap between using drops of my own blood in ritual up to this point and actually going as far as to take the plunge and have my own Witchmark, the primary sigil of Hecate, tattooed onto my body was a large one. With the sigil in place, it would be impossible to remove it – or at least physically difficult and spiritually permanently scarring. As such, I deliberated for awhile before deciding to ask Hecate directly for a response. The response to that half thought of a question that night was immediate, as I was surrounded and penetrated by a powerful, overwhelming force that seemed to permeate my entire body. Taking it as a sign, I finally came to my mind. I’d take the plunge and go through with it.

Using my intuition to guide me, I decided that the Witchmark would be placed over the sternum enabling two things. Firstly, that the Witchmark was placed as close to the centre of the chest as possible, over the region of the heart, seen in many cultures as a powerful energy centre of the body in some manner. Secondly, that the Witchmark would be out of sight, preserving it as a esoteric tool and mark in respect, not ‘displaying’ it in a show off my ego to the world.

every once in a while in your life you reach a decision point. a crossroad leading left or right. you can not look far enough to make the perfect step, but you have to decide anyways. is it left or right? or even turning back?

So yesterday I found myself on ‘the day’ of getting it tattooed onto my body. At this point, before hand, I was glad I was fully prepared, mentally at least, to receive it. The actual process was more painful than initially expected due its location (I was actually encouraged to get it placed elsewhere first!), but in the end it was strangely enjoyable in its own fashion. I tried visualisation several times, with only a small amount of success due to the environment coupled with the distracting pain. I saw flashes of images and sigils, but nothing concrete that I could work with or record for long in memory during the procedure. I eventually gave up and just began repeating a small mantra to Hecate in my head whilst the ink was applied.

After it was successfully applied I got up legs shaking, feeling born anew. Although physically exhausted, both mentally and spiritually I felt indescribably  heightened and sharpened. My body, mind and soul felt like they were screaming with vibrancy. A day later the effect still hasn’t worn off, and I still feel ecstatic, and have dreamed vividly.

I feel honoured to be able to receive this mark as a gift, and make that blood sacrifice in return as a sacred offering to Hecate which is the first step in a new direction on my journey. I hope to explore the paths unlocked by this sacred key, and share what I am able to.

With this being new territory to me, I thought it was more than worthy of a mention on the blog. I hope this post has been interesting and potentially shed some light on why it is seen as a necessary to my own path. I wish I could post more concretely about my own experience with it , but with it being such a new development I cannot really say much more as it would be a fabrication.

As a parting note, I’d like to say that I found an excellent post by another guy on his own similar experience which can be found at the following link, that shows anothers point of view on the subject. Whilst I don’t usually relate to many of the posts that go up on this site, this one definitely caught my eye.

http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usla&c=words&id=15349

Thank you as always for reading.

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Syncreticism: When is it useful, when is it hurtful?

Posted in Occultism, Paganism with tags , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2013 by Sypheara

So I’ve been mulling over the next topic to bring up.. and this important one popped into my mind. As someone who worked primarily as an eclectic in some sense until relatively recently, it was always something that I continually took to be a subject of high importance as I approached my workings.

Syncreticism is best and most quickly described as the ‘Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, … , especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.’. This  means in the terms of Paganism and Occultism the combining of different spiritual beliefs, and often actual practices, of  various traditions at the same time into a new form.

Commonly, these traditions are originally discrete practices or currents,  unconnected in any manner, separated often geologically, culturally and temporally, but slowly became incorporated into each other over time. An example of these types of hybrid beliefs which can grow from the merging of two forms of belief are possibly best found in the New World. Here, a myriad of  religions exist which arose from the combination of multiple belief systems. An easy case to point to would be something like Santería, which is the result of a  mixture of Yoruba, Native American and Catholic belief systems.

In modern Pagan and Occult circles, it can be often seen that there are high degrees of syncreticism, no doubt as the result of the easy access  to information caused by the coming of age of the internet. Whilst some of this works, and works well, other examples (which I won’t point out as causing offence isn’t the sake of the blog..) clearly does not, and in my opinion causes more harm than good.

So where do we draw the line? Whats helpful, and whats hurtful? Unfortunately, drawing that line is  on a very case by case basis.

A low level syncretic approach I would argue is vital. The search for analogues of your own practices and beliefs in other, differing currents allows for an insight that would otherwise be lost. Looking at other currents allows for each practitioner to potentially see where it intersects with his or her own teachings, which in turn allows for the revelation of new ideas and relations which may have, in a broad sense, have an enriching effect on their own beliefs and practices.

In this way, the philosophical insights from those other currents can be incorporated into ones own and potentially allow for its expansion and growth by challenging, confirming, or placing a different light on ones own beliefs.

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As soon as we begin leaving this territory however, things become much murkier and difficult to assess. When it come
s down to taking different rituals and mythological/theological ideas from different currents and combining them into a new form that utilise this ‘home brew’ , I would argue there is a very large possibility of utter disaster if it is not thought through with the most utmost care.

Even very ‘similar’ currents on the exoteric level can be significantly different on the esoteric level, causing  substantial problems in the long run. In the best case where two mostly incompatible currents come together, one element becomes dominated by the other, and becomes passive, having little effect in enriching the original tradition.  In the worst case however, the new combination just serves to show extreme disrespect to the currents being ‘forced’ together, and will either be entirely ineffectual or even harmful to the practitioner/practitioners who utilise it. The last is most likely to come from attempting to combine two very disparate belief systems.

An example of this to make the point clear is that, as someone who works with Hecate I would never use the name of Kali or Inanna for example within my tradition. Although connections between them exist, and one could even make a convincing argument that they are faces of potentially the same force, it would be wrong to use them within a ritual context as each face comes also with its own individual signature which marks it as its OWN current. This signature is influenced by the culture, and time period, it was originally conceived within and will undoubtedly come with additional influences which do not allow for them to be combined within the same working or potentially even the same framework.

The exception, I would say, is if the practitioner of a current was told otherwise through direct spirit work, with his or her Gods  or equivalent. Such instruction, if from a genuine source, should not be resisted as multiple, new, powerful ideas, concepts and paths have arisen from this process.

In conclusion, I do believe that overall Syncreticism is a highly important part in what makes Modern Paganism and Occultism feel alive and dynamic. It has definitively enriched my own practice, which will be seen throughout my further blog posts. However it is something that must be approached very carefully, with proper thought given to the above considerations without haste, recklessness, and disrespect to the traditions involved.

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