The Things I Learned From Chaos Magick.

Nothing is Real and Everything is Permitted. 

I am 14 years old, and kneeling at my altar. On it are effigies of Sekhmet and Anubis. At some point in time these spirits have presented themselves to me in dreams and visions - and for all I knew (or cared) the images they presented were wholly valid. I did not stop to run these spirits through the wringer and make them declare themselves to me. I did not test or argue with them. I accepted that the faces they gave to me were the faces they wanted me to see.

I went forward with the knowledge that at any point in time I could be proven wrong, and that the flexibility of my paradigm would allow for that without fundamental damage to it.  And for probably ten years the flexibility was never tested. And then one day I evoked "My Mother", and her face was hard, and her hair was not ringlets of black mane, but serpents. And a bolt went through my heart "This is a Gorgon, not a Kemetic goddess." And I looked to "My Father" - and I no longer saw a Jackal-headed man. I saw a man wearing a wolf-skin.

"Well, fuck" I said "Are y'all still okay with being called Sekhmet and Anubis... or... ?"

Worlds.

The Vesica Piscis is a great example of my worldview. Imagine that the circle on the right is the physical world of our reality, and that the circle on the left is the world of spirit (otherside, otherworld) that some can travel into.



The area where they overlap is the "Underworld", or Elphame. The realm where there is some semblance of this world, either in geological features, structures, or perception of the physical, while still being paired with imagery of the spirit realm.

Myself, I also count the borders. The Hedge is the border. In the illustration, it is the black line that surrounds each circle.

It was impressed upon me that borders are areas that simultaneously exist and don't exist. While you generally think of a wall as a two dimensional surface, an entire ecosystem can thrive between two bits of drywall. Such is the Hedge, for me at least. Just as it can be a boundary marker, so can it be a strangely dappled world where things live and thrive.

One author (oddly enough, an author of fanfiction) described something like this as an interstitial dimension. Depending on where, and how, the border is approached, it can be a very different experience.

In addition, consider that the two circles may not be the only ones. Multiple spheres and worlds can just as easily be chained along existence (one upon the other) meaning that the borders of multiple worlds overlap.



Some plants I speak to beneath "our" Hedge. In this border, everything is very much like our world, only a bit louder, so to speak. Others, I deal with beneath the Hedge beyond the Underworld, but only the plants that I trust. The images we deal with, even in the Underworld are nothing compared to how they appear beneath that hedge. Or beneath the hedge where the Underworld meets with something far more distant.

An Unpopular Truth.

It is IMPOSIBLE to self-initiate. Fuss all you like, disbelieve, rail, cry "pagan persecution" and "meanie poohead traditionalist" until you go blue in the face. It is impossible to self-initiate.

Why.

Initiation requires that there be a trigger and catalyst. A indoctrination by one party, of another party. A singular individual cannot indoctrinate them self into what they do not know, and if they already know it (someone self-initiating into their "own tradition") there is no induction process. One can dedicate them-self toward a practice, or confirm their walking of an already-established mode. But that is not an initiation.

But, of course, it's possible to be:

Initiated without a -physical- Initiator.

Initiation is something you can do by yourself, but it is something that can occur when no on else is physically near you. All circles are as one circle, and if properly cut through the worlds into a shared space, two people half a world apart can join together in spirit to pass the proper ties. Some traditions allow for this, though all the records are kept, and when the time comes the person ideally undergoes the physical initiation as well.

In addition, The Gods may come when sincerely called, and jam the right wires into your back. And though that may sound a little "harsh", direct god-to-human initiation is not exactly gentle. It's big, it's rough and painful... and often far more filled with life-upheaval than even the most misguided of human-on-human initiations. Why?? Probably because the experience of a body is not their strong suit, and thus they are unaware of the finer points of keeping it in perfect shape (or, in the case of some gods, the point is breaking you apart so they can remake you). Maybe because they are -gods-, and the small sip of energy we are accustomed to dealing with is nothing compared to the torrent they pour into us.

These initiations are really not ideal where most Trads are concerned. They are messy and forge connections which my folk call "Nonstandard in either quality, quantity or topography" (as compared to a "normal" initiation). The understanding of the Gods/Powers, rites, rituals and purposes of each, which come through these connections are most often NOT in holding with the Tradition one was trying to jack into. Hell, even the best-laid initiations sometimes result in this.

Self-Dedication, versus "Self-Initiation"

When I was a very young witch, I did a self-dedication ritual from a book. This was not an external experience (like initiation), but an internal one. This was a self-affirmation of my dedication (or, gosh, self-dedication). This got me walking in the right direction, and put me on the radars of the right powers (who put me on the radars of the right Priests).

Some folks say that The Witch Power is always inside us, and it merely takes a transformative experience, and applied use of said power, to create a Witch. That's fine and dandy, but still does not cover the grammatical and logic errors of "Self-Initiation". Revelatory experience is a much better term for that.