Iron Mountain: a Journal of Magical Religion Vol 01, No

Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections Digital Commons @Vtext New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library MS/150-1

Spring 1986 Iron Mountain: A Journal of Magical Religion Vol 01, No. 04

For this and additional works see: https://vtext.valdosta.edu/xmlui/handle/10428/2169 UUID: B3A501DD-CCBF-288F-420C-BA7BB39FEF68 Recommended Citation: Clifton, Chas S., and Mary Currier-Clifton, eds. Iron Mountain: A Journal of Magical Religion (Artemisia Press) 1, no.4 (Spring 1986). New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library. Archives and Special Collections. Valdosta State University. Valdosta, GA. http://hdl.handle.net/10428/2753. This item is free and open source. It is part of the New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library at Odum Library Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections. If you have any questions or concerns contact [email protected] Spring 1986 Vol. 1, No. 4 $5 Crafts Images of the Old Ones . . & the New Ones . . functional sculpture: oil lamps, censers, shrines, articles for personal altars,

percussion instruments. . . the unexpected!

Send large S.A.S.E. for illustrated brochure Fly by Night 5701 E. Colfax Ave. (at Ivanhoe St.) Denver, CO 80220 321-0867 P.O. box 11337 Eugene, Oregon 97440 Send $3 for complete mail order catalog.

Book searches. Table of Contents

EDITORS VOLUME 1, NUMBER 4 Chas S. Clifton Mary Currier-Clifton

CONTRIBUTING On the Slopes of Iron Mountain...... 2 EDITORS John Crank L etters...... 3

Although the copyright to Re-vamping the World: On the Return of the Holy Prostitute— contributions may remain Deena M etzger...... 5 with the author, it is Magical Religion Pervades Brazil— understood that in return Carol D o w ...... 17 for publication, Iron Mountain has the Book Reviews...... 29 nonexclusive right to publish the contribution Index to Volume 1 ...... 39 and the continuing right, without limit, to include the contribution as part of any reprinting of the issue and/or volume in which the contribution first appeared, by any means and in any format.

Iron Mountain does not guarantee to review unsolicited books.

Entire contents Copyright (c) 1986 by Artemisia Press

Published by Artemisia Subscriptions to Iron Mountain are $9 for one year (two Press, P.O. Box 227, issues); $16 for two years. Advertising information and Florence, Colorado 80306. rates furnished on request.

ISSN 8756-3142. Iron Mountain welcomes scholarly, informed journalistic or literary work relating to magical religious traditions and practices worldwide. Potential contributors should send a long, stamped, self-addressed envelope for the Iron Mountain writer’s guide before submitting material.

SPRING 1986 On the Slopes of Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain is a journal on the move. This time, we’re returning to southern Colorado, to the upper Arkansas River bioregion, if you’d like to think of it that way. Our new address will be P.O. Box 227, Florence, Colorado 81226. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. This issue has been slightly delayed because of preparations for the move and because of some mechanical problems in production. But the real reason for delays in Iron Mountain is not machinery glitches or a lack of money—sometimes it’s a lack of time—but rather our refusal to print material that doesn’t meet our standards of what will be interesting to our readers. “ Re-Vamping the World,” the piece by the feminist writer and critic Deena Metzger in this issue, has already been reprinted once, a shorter version having appeared in the August-September 1985 issue of Utne Reader, a bi-monthly anthology of “ the best of the alternative press” (P.O. Box 1974, Marion, Ohio 43305 $18/1 year/6 issues. Canada $23; other foreign $28 ). We are told a version also appeared in Burning Times. Nevertheless, this article has probably had its greatest circulation in photocopy form, and so we’re happy to give it another exposure on the printed page. Carol Dow, our other major contributor this issue, is one of a group of American scholars taking a closer look at Umbanda, the Brazilian magical religion whose influence pervades that society, even when it is ignored officially. Given that most Iron Mountain readers probably aren’t familiar with the basic history and terminology of Brazilian religious movements, her article can only touch the surface, but this is a topic to which we hope someday to return. The woodcuts scattered through this issue were done by Kenneth J. Carpenter, and are reproduced from Straight With the Medicine, reviewed in this issue. Lastly, for the benefit of new readers and bibliographers, we introduce in this issue what we hope will become an on-going cumulative index of articles, poems, reviews and other material that has appeared in previous issues. Since early issues are no longer available, we are offering photocopied reprints of individual articles, with the fees for reprints given in the index. The Editors

2 IRON MOUNTAIN Letters

To the Editors: witch and we had a very interesting I am sorry, though not really surprised, to discussion. It turned out that he had been see that your contributor Aidan Kelly has influenced by the sensational rubbish that brought the controversy over the origins of was being printed in the popular press at that “Gardnerian” Witchcraft down to the level time, and really knew very little about the of personal abuse. In my reply to his Old Religion and its followers. I ended up contribution, “Inventing Witchcraft,” I did having tea with Mr. Roberts and his wife in not abuse him. I simply told him that he was the House of Commons tea room, and I am wrong. The venomous response which this glad to say that he did not pursue his has called forth from him certainly has proposed legislation any further. established one thing: he can no longer I remember giving an interview on our represent himself as being an impartial national radio at the time, telling people that scholar. His emotional involvement in the I was a witch and why I was going to the matter is self-evident. Why, he alone knows. House of Commons. I stuck my neck out to Of course', it is much easier to attack do this precisely because I was one of the few people’s character than to admit that your people at that time who could come out of pet theory has just collapsed like a house of the closet. Others had jobs to hold down cards. But Mr. Kelly has, as usual, got his and children whose custody they might have facts wrong. From from having hidden in been deprived of, in the atmosphere of the closet for 25 years, I was giving public anti-witch hysteria that the gutter press was lectures and making television appearances trying to generate. as a witch before Mr. Kelly every founded My book An A.B.C. of Witchcraft Past & his NROOGD, which I am told took place in Present was first published in 1973. In it I 1967. Everyone in Britain who knows we at started quite clearly that I was a witch and all well knows this, and they also know that I that I used to work with Gerald Gardner. was initiated by Gerald Gardner and made Mr. Kelly’s allegation that I kept my some contribution to the present-day “ Gardnerian” initiation a secret for 25 years “ Gardnerian” rituals. So Mr. Kelly’s and that I have only now “come so far out attempt at character assassination will make of the closet” because of his activities is little impression over here. therefore demonstrably false from evidence It was back in 1964 that I addressed the in print. As it is upon the basis of this famous Pentagram dinner at a London allegation that he has chosen to impugn both hotel. My speech was printed in Pentagram my sincerity as a person and my good faith magazine and called forth the rather snide as a writer, I must ask him for an apology comment from one who claimed to be a and a retraction. If he refuses, then he will traditional witch that it was “ full of be doing a great deal more harm to his own Gardnerian sweetness and light.” The word credibility than he will to mine. “ Gardnerian” was just beginning to come But even if Mr. Kelly had been right into use in those days. about this, how would that exonerate his In 1970 I went to the House of Commons conduct in circulating his allegations behind to lobby a Member of Parliament, Mr. my back? I note with amusement how Gwilyn Roberts, who was trying to introduce speedily he leapt in to claim his right of new legislation to get witchcraft banned in reply. Did it really never occur to him that I Britain. I introduced myself to him as a had the same right? Or does he think, like SPRING 1986 3 the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, the expediency of the moment. that witches are not entitled to the same I have told the truth about what I know of standard of fair play as anyone else? And these matters. I shall continue to do so. And how touchy he is about Meredydd if Mr. Kelly cannot accept my word because Barrowman-Harper’s remarks! Doesn’t it it conflicts with his pet theory, well, tough occur to him either that if he insists on luck. I am more interested at the moment in impugning everyone else’s motives and writing my autobiography than in arguing sincerity, then his own may legitimately be with him. called into question? As for what Mr. Kelly tells us he has been I would be obliged if Mr. Kelly would be able to “prove” about the “Craft Laws” in good enough to quote any passage from my the light of the wonderful power of “modern books in which I claim to be “ an biblical scholarship,” I must admit my independent witness to the truth of the heathen ignorance. I had thought hitherto Gardnerian historical claims.’’ I never have that was only the Pope in whose infallibility claimed to do anything more than hand on Roman Catholics were required to believe. I what old Gerald told me. It seems to me that trust that there will be room upon the papal Mr. Kelly is the one who is making all sorts throne for both His Holiness and Mr. Kelly; of “historical claims.” He has produced a and if not, that the Pope will step down pseudo-history of modern witchcraft that is gracefully. nothing but his own rather pompous Doreen Valiente theorising, and which moreover keeps Brighton, England changing like a chameleon in order to suit

4 IRON MOUNTAIN Re-vamping the World: On the Return of the Holy Prostitute

By Deena Metzger

The following paper was first delivered to This paper is about seduction in a world The House of Women: A Conference of where the belief system is puritan. Here Feminist Art and Culture in the Eighties at sexuality is restricted physically, emotionally California State University at Long Beach. and spiritually. Here seduction is evil, eros is diabolic and woman is tainted. Here we are Ten years ago the establishment o f the taught that these are not attitudes nor ideas Woman's Building in Los Angeles marked but descriptions o f the order o f things, that the beginning o f the serious investigation o f this is the nature o f divine and natural laws. Woman's Culture in Los Angeles. Feminism In this world the belief system is o f the 1960s and ‘70s was optimistic—there contradicted by instinct and experience, by was confidence that the world could be memories from the collective unconscious. changed to include the needs, desires, And so we live in the void between belief and concerns o f women. There was still a sense disbelief. And, if we are conscious, we must that there was a world to be changed. It is live in the world as heretics. This paper is difficult to be so confident in the 1980s; about heresy. there is no certainty about the continuing existence o f a world to be changed. The In the play The Balcony, by Jean Genet, planet and therefore all culture is precarious. the world is envisioned as a whorehouse. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, I asked myself Here men put on fantasies with their continually, “What can be done? What must costumes, play our their desire for notoriety, I do? But today we do not simply have the control, power, enact the defilements luxury o f action. The question I must ask implicit in the roles they chose—bishop, myself is, “What must I be?" in order to judge, general. According to Genet, the change conditions. This paper is a response world is a whorehouse and sexuality is the to these new terrible conditions and this catalyst for cruelty, violence, degradation. essential question. Men come to power as to a whore to SPRING 1986 5 aggrandize their basest instincts. In the play cleansed and reunited with the gods. The the madam, Irma, is a cold and calculating Quedishtu or Quadesh is associated with a woman, involved in her own fantasy of variety of goddesses including Hathor, power, but the whores she employs are Ishtar, Anath, Astarte, Asherah, etc. (It is innocuous, not even depicted as victims, but interesting to note that, according to Patricia the irrelevant objects of a pernicious game. Monaghan in The Book o f Goddesses and The play is complex. Genet spares no Heroines, Astarte originally meant “ She of aspect of this society in his view of its the womb,” but appears in the Old essential corruption. As he scrutinizes the Testament as Ashtoreth, meaning fantasies, Genet condemns the roles upon “ shameful thing.” ) Despite scripture and which the fantasies are based as well. He sees orthodox thought war was seen as separating no difference in behavior or substance men from the gods and one had to be between the fantasy judge and the real reconnected in order to be able to re-enter judge. Reality, he asserts, is only image. society. The body, the sexual act, was the But what of the whores? Inconsequential? means for re-entry. As the body was the Inert? Yes. Defiled? No. Only the images means, so inevitably pleasure was an they represent are defiled. It is the Virgin accompaniment, but the essential attribute Mary not the whore who is defiled by the lust of sexuality, in this context, was prayer. of the bank clerk. For Genet, the whores So these are the poles: the Temple of the have even less reality, substance, than the Holy Prostitute at one end and the Brothel whoremongers. They do not engage him at of Lust and Power on the other. One body all. Chantal, the one whore who escapes the takes us to the gods and the other takes us to brothel to join in the revolution raging godslessness. One is a vehicle for the sacred outside, is soon transformed into another and the other is a vehicle for illusion. One image, perhaps more positive, the image of takes us to communion and the other to the revolution for which it is hoped men will nothingness. One is essentially antiwar and storm the barricades. But this image has no the other is violent. One invokes joy and the substance either and the revolution itself is other cruelty. One is part of our history and finally corrupted. In the final scene the the other, unfortunately, is our present, for leader of the revolution enters the we have all been born into the brothel cum whorehouse to enact his own death in the world. As in The Balcony, where the whore’s fantasy of the chief of police. young child survives on her mother’s earnings, we all feed off the brothel’s filthy Once upon a time, in Sumeria, in lucre. Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in Greece, in...there In Pergamon, Turkey, I saw the remains were no whorehouses, no brothels. In that of the Temple of the Holy Prostitutes on the time, in those countries, there were instead Sacred Way, alongside the other temples, the Temples of the Sacred Prostitutes. In palaces, public buildings. Whatever rites we these temples men were cleansed, not sullied; imagine took place in these other buildings, morality was restored, not desecrated; it is common—whether we elevate them as sexuality was not perverted, but divine. do Neo-Pagans or condemn them as do The original whore was a priestess, the Judeo-Christians—to associate the Holy conduit to the divine, the one through whose Prostitutes with orgies and debauchery. But body one entered the sacred arena and was it is possible that neither view is correct, as restored. Warriors, soldiers, soiled by each tends to inflate the physical activity and combat within the world of men, came to the ignore to impugn the spiritual component. Holy Prostitute, the Quedishtu, literally Our materialist preoccupation with form meaning the “ undefiled one” in order to be blinds us to the content. 6 IRON MOUNTAIN But it is no wonder that from the not uncommon. Incoming religions often beginning the first patriarchs, the priests of co-opt, then reverse, existing spiritual beliefs Judah and Israel, the prophets of Yahweh, and practices. all condemned the Holy Prostitutes and the So Hades, the spiritual center of Greek worship of Ahserah, Astarte, Anath, and the Paganism, became Hell. The descent into other goddesses. Until the time of these Hades, the core of the Euleusinian Mysteries priests, the women were one doorway to the and a spiritually required initiation for divine. If the priests wished to insert anyone who was concerned with soul, was themselves between the people and the likened to suffering and perdition. Where divine, they had to remove women from that once Pindar had written, “ Thrice blessed are role. So it was not that sexuality was those who have seen these Mysteries, for originally considered sinful perse, or that they know the end of life and beginning,” women’s sexuality threatened property and Dante later was to inscribe, “Abandon all progeny, it was also that in order for the hope, ye who enter here.” Similarly priests to have power, woman had to be Dionysus, the life god, became Satan, as replaced as a road to the divine; this gate had Adonis, the consort of Aphrodite, became to be closed. And it was, we can speculate, to Christ. Mary Magdalene the Holy Prostitute this end that the terrible mysogyny that we was converted and transformed; Aphrodite all suffer was instituted. became Eve became the Virgin Mary. The But the priest did not serve the people as a reversals were complete. Psyche’s (soul’s) living conduit to the divine. The way of the journey toward individuation became almost Holy Prostitute was personal, through the impossible as Aphrodite, the mother of body and through the woman. When the Eros, no longer existed to beckon the Self. Holy Prostitute was removed, the living road Three of the essential roads to the three was condemned. And when the priests worlds were blocked or debased. The gods separated the body from the gods, they did not die in Nietzche’s time, but centuries separated the divine from nature, and earlier with the subversion of the priestesses thereby created the mind/body split from and the secularization and degradation of which we have all suffered these past the holy body. thousands of years. This is a paper about seduction, about Women had been the essential link to the vamping. About eros. An attempt to restore three worlds. Through the mother one came a tradition, to reinstitute a way of seeing the into this world; through the Mysteries, the world. It is not only about restoring rites of Demeter or Isis one entered the practices, it is first about restoring the underworld; and through the Holy consciousness from which those practices Prostitute one came to the divine. Access may derive. Sometimes, according to the was personal and unconditional. It was not behaviorists, feelings follow behavior, but sufficient for a new priesthood to supplant most often the behaviors overlaid upon an the women. In the days of the quedishtu alien worldview alter to correspond to the every woman served the gods as a Holy underlying thought. Contemporary sexual Prostitute for at least a year. This was freedom is a case in point. For though it contradictory to the hegemony that a seeks to imitate what is thought to be pagan priesthood required. permissiveness, it is essentially distinct For the sake of power is is often necessary because the symbolic, magical components to set the world upside down. Therefore the have not been restored. It may look like the priests asserted that the sacred was same behavior, but it is entirely different. In depraved, that the way to the divine was the fact, we do not know what appropriate way to perdition. Reversals such as this are behaviors, rituals, ceremonies will develop SPRING 1986 7 when puritanism is dislodged from the we re-vamp as well? deepest levels of our psyches and when the Vamp: A woman who sets out to charm sacredness of sexuality is restored. We can or captivate by the use of sexual not know what forms will develop in the attractiveness. contemporary world when the inclination Re-vamp: To mend, repair, rennovate, toward bonding is not undermined by the refurbish or restore. terror of fusion. Though we talk about In 1978 I wrote a novel, The Woman Who wholeness, oneness, holiness, we persist in Slept with Men to Take the War Out o f the developing duality, separation, division. So Them (Berkeley, California: Wingbow we do not know how we will come to express Press) about Holy Prostitutes. In the writing a sacred universe when it is restored. We do of the book I was educated as to the meaning not know what forms sexuality as of that role. In the novel, the protagonist, communion will take. Ada, is a peasant woman who wants to What was the impact on the world of the revenge the death of her rebel husband at the suppression of the Holy Prostitute? We are hands of the general of the occupying army: not concerned here with the suppression of certain rites, but rather with the deprivation THE WITNESS. The woman who lived in of consciousness implicit in that an occupied village went to the general. She suppression. All the practices which honored knocked at his door with the pretext of the way of the woman ceased. The selling him eggs. Eleusinian Mysteries, which had provided In the morning, she washed herself and in immortality were suppressed; the Mysterieos the shower as the water fell on her she asked: of the Cabeiri, designed specifically to ADA. May I be like water. May I bend redeem those with blood on their hands were over rocks. May I not break. May I flow. suppressed; procreation was infused with May I endure. anxiety and guilt; fertility festivals that had If I die, may I go up and come down provided a link between earth and spirit were again, may I not be gone forever. May I find condemned. The world was secularized. We a secret hiding place under the earth. May I can only speculate as to the consequences, be a well. May I move under the feet and though we must assume there were over the houses. May I be strong. May I be consequences when men returned from war white. May I be pure. without the ability to clean the blood from THE WITNESS. And the water fell on their hands, when the physical, quotidian her in great hot sheets and she soaped her community between the gods and the people long, dark hair and piled it whitely on top of was not reconvened. It was not woman per her head. The soap curled under her arm, in se that was attacked, but the gods who were her groin, on all the covered places of her exiled. Perhaps the world as we have come to sex, and then was rinsed away. know it—impersonal, abstract, detached, And she went to the house of the general brutish—was engendered in that division. and knocked at his door. In a sacred universe, the prostitute is a holy woman, a priestess. In a secular * universe the prostitute is a whore. In this distinction is the agony of our lives. Ada rises in the morning and does what she The question is, how do we relate to this must. today, as women, as feminists? Is there a A woman whose name is Ada walks down way we can resanctify society, become the the street of an occupied village from the priestesses again, put ourselves in the service cemetery, passing her own house, the of the gods and eros? As we re-vision, can general’s house, which she enters without a

8 IRON MOUNTAIN word to lie down unashamed on his bed. She difficult if not seemingly impossible to does this— continue to enact the feminine in the world THE WOMAN —with the full without feeling as if we are opening cognizance that she is committing a political ourselves to further violation. So we are act. caught in a terrible paradox. To feel powerful, to acquire some gain, we must In the same novel Grace, a prostitute in an learn the very masculine modes that oppress old-age home, reminisces: us and that are about to destroy the world. In either case we seem to participate in our “ Still so sweet the men who came. We own destruction. But if we utilize the didn’t allow whips. No rough stuff. And feminine it is possible that the planet will when they left—little lambs. Do you think survive and also the species, and that the wives sent us as basket at Christmastime eventually we will thrive. Without the with a little homemade jam, for thanks?” feminine and eros everything is irretrievably lost. * And so we must all become Holy Prostitutes again. “Always used to say those men would And this brings us to the issue of heresy. have torn the entire town apart on Saturday Heresy is a thought crime. It is the worst night if not for us. I thought we should have crime that a human being can commit. It is gotten a commendation from the marshall’s worse than murder, for heresy is an act office. I told that to Alf, the chief of police, against god. It is, in effect, the murder of the straight out. We were the best investment in gods. Still, many of us have had to commit law and order they ever made.” this crime, have had to abandon one inherited set of so-called divine beliefs for What does it mean to revamp a society? It another belief system. This is not the same as means that we must become vamps again, changing one’s ideas—that is relatively easy. sexual-spiritual beings, that we must act out The difficulty is that we are changing beliefs. of eros. This means that we must first alter In the act of restoring a personal relationship ourselves in the most fundamental ways. We to the spiritual world, we often feel as if we cannot become the means for the are defying the divine in the act of seeking resanctification of society unless we are the divine. This is a state of torment we willing to become the priestesses once more experience alone, ashamed, bewildered by who serve the gods not in theory and empty the extend of the internal agony, unable to practice, but from their very natures. It formulate language to communicate the means that we must identify with eros no experience, unable to share the pain. matter what the seeming consequences to To deny the puritanical universe is ourselves. Even if it seems foolish, heretical and dangerous. To support it is inexpedient, even if it makes us vulnerable. personally and politically destructive. Our It means that we cannot be distracted from neuroses derive from sustaining such this task by pleasure, power, lusts or anger. paradox. Each of us has internalized the It requires a sincere rededication. puritan attitude and someone inside us has It is, however, exactly this rededication to become the guardian of that idea. the principles of the feminine that is so Sometimes we manage to alter our behavior, problematic. The feminine has been so but that, in itself, does not set us free. devalued and degraded, has so little power in Rebellion implies an essential link to the the world, suffered so much loss of system; what is required is internal opportunity, been so oppressed, that it is revolution. Only then does our behavior SPRING 1986 9 have integrity and influence. struck by the persistence of religious At 47 my talented and accomplished iconography. In the outskirts of Havana, I friend still believes she will marry and have came across an old man on a porch rocker. children, be cared for. “At 83, I’ll still Above his head was a portrait of the secretly expect this. I don’t know how to free trinity—Che, Fidel, and Cienfuegos—their myself from this idea,” she says. My friend heads emerging from the clouds, the sunrise has been resolutely independent, has swirling about them. Along the main pursued the most difficult, even physically highway were plaster busts of Jose Marti dangerous career, which has taken her at draped with flowers. Before each Committee strategic times to India, Africa, the Near for the Defense of the Revolution were East. She could have become another Oriana creches, altars containing posters, images, Fallaci had she not been stymied each time statues, bunting, ribbons, flowers. Offerings of opportunity by her internal puritan. But to the gods of the revolution. These were the whenever she has had to commit herself to spontaneous expressions of people trying to independence, her belief in herself has been create a new world, to re-establish heaven on thwarted, she has lost energy, suffered from earth, a repetition of the medieval urge to inertia or depression, become restless, create the City of God through architecture uninspired, self-absorbed, ill, unable to or to establish the New Canaan in the work. Her limitations rather than her gifts wilderness of North America. prevailed. When contemporary Feminism was This is familiar. It is not remediable by established sufficiently to offer real hope will. Therapy rarely dislodges, only overlays, and possibility, women who had formerly so intransigent and unconscious a belief considered themselves atheists turned to system. Fundamental to my friend’s spiritual matters. The Goddess and involuntary self-sabotage is the internalized goddesses were reinvoked. There was an belief—not idea—that in god’s universe, all extraordinary interest in spirituality, myth, evidence to the contrary, a woman marries, rite, ceremony. The spiritual instinct buried has children, is cared for. in a secular universe erupted. It is not the particular belief that is so As part of this new spiritual order, we intractable, but the greater human need to must engage in two heresies. The second is to live in a world that reflects a divine or re-sanctify the body; the first even more natural universe. It is not regressive, difficult task is to return to the very early, conservative, revisionist to be connected to Neolithic, pagan, matriarchal perception of such a religious impulse, to search for the the sacred universe itself. But to overthrow divine order and to attempt to live secular thought may be the heretical act of accordingly. Perhaps it is instinct. This the century. That is why we are in so much instinct is at the heart of the search for psychic pain. knowledge, motivated Plato and Einstein, is Why isn’t it easier? Everyone seems to be the core of Galileo’s anguish when he doing it. We are surrounded on all sides by muttered, “Nevertheless, it moves,” the consciousness hawkers who imply provoked Antigone to bury her dead. To enlightenment is easy, even a commodity. challenge a belief system is as traumatic as New Age consciousness promises one easy challenging one’s very nature. road after another, loathe even to mention But however difficult it is to alter one’s the dangers from the outside world, beliefs it is virtually impossible to eradicate although Witches, Pagans, early Christians, the spiritual instinct that remains in the etc., have been burned. Neither are we told unconscious. Traveling in Cuba some about the inner agonies, the disruption of twenty-odd years after the revolution, I was consciousness. We learn the story of Christ’s

10 IRON MOUNTAIN 40 days in the desert, the Israelites’ 40 years, believe that eros is pragmatic. Then we must we’re told the shaman’s flesh is torn from be willing to act. her as she descends the World tree, that But though the action may be Psyche is devastated by her isolation, that pleasurable, still it is often unpleasant as we the great Sumerian goddess, Inanna, is cannot limit our eros to the few we love, to dismembered, her torso hung on a hook at women, to our families, or to the small the entrance of the Underworld like a piece community which keeps us safe. We can just of decaying meat, but we are not warned imagine how difficult, even repugnant, it that we will inevitably relive these psychic must have been for the young girl to take events as we descend into the dark to divest into her body, for cleansing, the muddied, ourselves of one consciousness to accept bloodied, sullied body of the soldier. And another, as we leave the day world of secular yet this is the symbolic task. We must though to enter the Underworld of the gods. resurrect ourselves in the form of what has “Paradigm shift” is the flat, dispassionate, been most dishonored and then help those scientific phrase we have created for this who are least capable and most blind, even enormous venture, to describe what I prefer those for who we have the greatest to call “the agony of consciousness.” repugnance, through the narrow passage to “Paradigm shift” is the way we secularize the sacred where war is not permitted to the journey into the sacred, how we defeat enter. ourselves even as we begin. Susan griffin writes the following When we hear a call to Eros, to the Holy “ Eros,” the last chapter of Pornography Prostitute, we cannot leap romantically to and Silence: the task without realizing what is demanded, The psyche is simply world. And if I let what is risked. The function of the Holy myself love, let myself touch, enter my own Prostitute—that it of all women—was to pleasure and longing, enter the body o f cleanse the society. Purification occurred as another, the darkness, let the dark parts o f one came to the gods. It was an arduous and my body speak, tongue into mouth, in the painful rite of passage and revitalization. body's language, as I enter a part of me / And yet it is what I hope we can bring believed was real begins to die, I descend ourselves to enact again. into matter, I know I am at the heart o f The Holy Prostitute reminds us that there myself, I cry out in ecstasy. For in love, we is a direct relationship between woman’s surrender our uniqueness and become culture and peace. That the Holy Prostitute world.” was an effective balance against the tendency If we become world through love, then to violence. Now this is the moment when we love is essentially a political act. If we must be willing to sustain a heresy. This is become world reaching to the gods, then the moment when we must be willing to love is essentially a spiritual act that redeems consider this idea without dismissing it the world. immediately as naive, misinformed, merely Still, we are afraid: hopeful, or sentimental. For it is heretical to In The Woman Who... the following believe that love and eros can be effective. conversation occurs: But this is the conception, the ontological understanding that was destroyed with the HER FRIEND. Who is Ada? destruction of the temples of the holy THE WOMAN. Ada? She is the most prostitutes and the worship of the goddesses important one. She is the woman who sleeps of love. (We must remember that these were with the General to take the war out of him. no passing religions; Hathor alone was HER FRIEND. Oh, you mean this book worshipped for 3,000 years.) First we must isn’t about yourself? SPRING 1986 11 THE WOMAN. Hardly. I am not brave For Genet, we cannot change, we always enough. revert to our essential and corrupt nature; all our behavior is instrumental, self-interested, and insincere. But a failed revolution is not inevitable. What is required, however, is for the revolutionaries to alter themselves first from within. If they have already created change within themselves then the revolution evolves naturally from their new psyches. To become the Holy Prostitute is to be willing to endure the agony of consciousness required to the heretic. It is the willingness and ability to hold one world view when the majority hold another. It is to commit oneself to eros, bonding, connection, when the world values thanatos, separation, detachment. The Holy Prostitute was Every woman and she made herself available How then do we become Holy in the service of the gods especially to those Prostitutes? How do we materialize without outside the province of the gods. The literalizing her? How bring her essence into contemporary Holy Prostitute must be being? How do we restore the temple? How willing to try to bring the sacred to the one do we change not only behavior but our who is defiled; she must be the one who will consciousness as well? take in “ the other,” the one who makes love Genet thought it could not be done. For with “the other” in order for him to be him the debased brothel would always exist reconnected to the community. She carries and whatever tried to escape from the belief that “ the other” does not want to corruption would eventually succumb. At remain an outsider. These ideas are old and the end of The Balcony, Roger, the familiar, easy to say, so difficult to enact. disillusioned and failed revolutionary, says: Yet when they are transformed from idea to “ If the brothel exists and if I’ve a right to belief within ourselves, transformation go there, then I’ve a right to lead the outside ourselves follows. character (in this instance the chief of police, Recently I have been doing some work archenemy of the revolution) I’ve chosen to which I call Personal Disarmament. I ask the very limit of his destiny... no, of mine... individuals to consider themselves nation of merging his destiny with mine.” states and to improve upon themselves those And Irma the madam ends the play with conditions they would like to impose upon the final words: those countries. In this exercise they must “ In a little while, I’ll have to start all over identify their enemies, their armies, again... put all the lights on again... dress defensive and offensive systems, secret up... dress up.... ah, the disguises! weapons, etc. Then after this self-scrutiny, I Distribute the roles again... assume my ask them publicly to commit at least a single own... prepare yours... judges, generals, act of personal disarmament to initiate the bishops, chamberlains, rebels who allow the change to a peaceful world. It seems to me revolt to congeal. I’m going to prepare my that our militarism and defensiveness is a costumes for tomorrow. ...You must now go sign of our inner fear and aggression. I home, where everything—you can be quite believe that ultimately it will be easier for us sure—will be falser than here.” to disarm as a nation, if we are disarmed as

12 IRON MOUNTAIN individuals. encountered a goddess figure in any of my The same scrutiny is essential to the issue own meditations. Her hair was light itself. at hand. If we built brothel adjuncts to our As she came close to me, I was filled both temples and sent our young girls there at 18, with awe at her beauty and terror at her it would be ludicrous and would change presence. If I were to take her into me, I nothing. Nothing can change as long as we knew my life would be altered, I would have continue to devalue the feminine, denigrate to give up many of the masculine modes I the body and disbelieve in a sacred universe. had adopted in order to negotiate Certainly the sexual revolution has proven successfully in the world. The woman was this for it has changed nothing. So it is not powerful, but her power was up receptivity, sex we are after at all, but something far resonance, magnetism, radiance. She had deeper. the power or eros; she drew me to her. The task is to accept the body as spiritual, As she appeared, I was reminded of a and sexuality and erotic love as spiritual statement by a friend: “ When it comes to the disciplines. To honor the feminine even bell,” Dianna Linden said, “we all want to where it is dishonored or disadvantaged. be the clapper, we don’t want to be the body, These, then, are some of the questions I but it is the body which sings.” Still, when think it is appropriate for us to ask she appeared, I consciously experienced the ourselves: terror the feminine I had so often read and heard about. I was afraid o f my own nature. Whom do I close myself against? At that moment I committed myself to When do I not have time for love or eros? risking heresy, to converting, whatever the When do I find eros inconvenient, personal cost, to the feminine. burdensome or inexpedient? So though I have written about it, When I do find eros dangerous to me? thought about it, tried to act accordingly, I When do I indulge the erotic charge of must admit that I have not been able fully to guilt? put on the robe of the Holy Prostitute. This Where do I respond to, accept, provoke fills me with sadness, also awe at the the idea of sin? difficulty of the task. But I do commit When do I use sexuality to distract rather myself; she is the woman I aspire to be. than to commune? The shadow of nuclear war, the fear of When do I reject eros because I am planetary devastation, may provoke people rejected? to premature action. My friend Stephen When do I abuse the body? Nachmanovich asks, “ Why do things get How do I reinforce the mind/body worse when we try to fix them?” In the split? When and how do I denigrate the 1960s Daniel Berrigan said, “ Don’t just do feminine? something, stand there.” Action devoid of When do I refuse the gods? When do I consciousness is useless, even dangerous. only pretend to believe in them? Consciousness, however, leads inevitably to When I do I accept the gods only when right action. To come to consciousness takes they serve me? an interminably long time. To bring a society How often do I acquiesce to the “ real to consciousness may seem to take eons. But world” ? our circumstances are so dire that we must not risk unconscious action. The stakes are Recently in a guided medication I was too high. We must allow whatever time it confronted by a large, luminous woman, takes to re-establish the consciousness of the approximately eight feet tall, clearly an Sacred Prostitute. We must allow ourselves image of a goddess, though I had never whatever time it takes to restore eros.

SPRING 1986 13 14 IRON MOUNTAIN Magical Religion Pervades Brazil

By Carol Dow, Ph.D.

It is a hot Friday night in Rio de Janeiro shack, women dressed in ornate costumes and traffic swarms over the wide Avenida sway over a chalk-marked floor to the steady Atlantica that runs along Copacabana beat of drums. Beach. Oblivious to the movement around And in the living room of a luxury her, a well-dressed young woman in the apartment in the fashionable Leblon district median strip kneels in prayer over two a group of people stands in a circle holding candles, some red roses, a cigarette, and an hands and chanting the symbols of an open bottle of liquor, all carefully placed on unknown tongue as one of their number a cloth. After meditating awhile she rises and kneels in concentration over a single glass of leaves the makeshift altar without looking water, carefully placing rose petals around back. it. Such scenes, which occur nightly in Rio At a nearby cemetery someone wearing and throughout Brazil, are manifestations of the mask of a jackal leans over a man who a popular religion. has been bound to a grave and blows smoke The state religion of Brazil is Roman into his face. Catholicism, but a general attitude of In another part of the city, in a rundown religious tolerance historically has prevailed SPRING 1986 15 and many Brazilians—far more than can be employs 55 workers who produce 200 statues found in Hispanic countries—embrace per day: images of the African-derived gods, Judaism and Protestantism. In addition, or orixás, (see below) and of the types of most Brazilians are either disciples of, or at spirits who frequently speak through least believers in, a popular religion which Umbanda mediums, such as caboclos goes by many names, distributed along a (unacculturated Brazilian Indians) and continuum of practice: Espiritismo pretos velhos, literally, “ old blacks” from (Spiritism), Umbanda, Quimbanda, the era of slavery in Brazil. Macumba, or Candomblé. On any Friday night in Rio de Janeiro, These traditions permeate all aspects of one can see numerous lit candles on street Brazilian society and culture. Government corners, usually accompanied by food, and ecclesiastical sources estimate that the cigarettes, matches, jewelry, and other terreiros (centers where Umbanda offertory objects. These items were put there ceremonies, healing sessions, and teachings by a believer who consulted a medium at a take place) number around 300,000. Even terreiro about a despacho to be performed this is a conservative estimate, for it is often on a street corner, beach, in a forest or by a difficult to locate these centers. Adherents, waterfall in order to gain love, money, i.e. those who actively participate in rituals health or perhaps satisfaction from an and not just those who may hold some injustice. believe, comprise approximately one-third The influence of these Afro-Brazilian of Brazil’s inhabitants. traditions is so strong the Brazilian Roman One famous leader of the movement, Catholic Church was persuaded to change Chico Xavier, a 60-year-old retired some of its policies and permit congregations bureaucrat and medium who uses automatic to follow practices such as using drums, bells writing to transmit messages from beyond, and other musical instruments; energetically has written more than 160 volumes of which dancing in religious processions; and more than 5 million copies have been sold, creating special ornamentaion for altars. [1] exceeding the popularity of nationally Umbanda, the most widespread tradition, known authors such as Jorge Amado and is in fact promoted by many of its followers Erico Verissimo. as the national religion of Brazil, In Rio de Janeiro, casas de santo (stores syncretising elements of Christianity, its that sell articles for Umbanda rituals, and Yoruban African predecessors, and for the despachos or trabalhos as individual European spiritism in an effort to be taken workings are called in Portuguese) offer as a truly universal faith rather than merely items such as candles, bath powders, “ folk belief.” Umbandists have become perfumes, colored ribbons, statues, politically organized on the local and state glassware, clay pots, cigars, incense, jewelry, levels since the 1960s when an Umbandist books, etc., and are as common as stationery named Atila Nunes was elected a deputy of stores. As recently as the 1940s the Congress and managed to have the religion government prohibited the sale of ritual legalized. Many government and military articles and the stores that were later to leaders profess to embrace either the become casas de santo remained open under Umbanda or Spiritist faiths. In addition, a the guise of dealing in folk arts and crafts, peculiarity of Brazilian election law makes but now that the religion has been legalized Umbanda congregations one of the limited shopowners do brisk business. numbers of types of groups a campaigning Small, often family-operated factories politician may address and as a result they supply the casas de santo with statues and are actively courted. other objects. One such company in Rio One way or another, these beliefs have

16 IRON MOUNTAIN suffused into Brazilian society and are of popular region is Black Orpheus, where a reflected in its music, art, cinema, and key scene takes place in a terreiro. The literature. For example, Afro-Brazilian folk Amulet o f Ogum (1977) treated folk religions are a major theme of one of the traditions and how they manifest in most lauded works of the playwright Dias contemporary society. Popular Brazilian Gomes, and play a predominant role in the music also benefits substantially from the later novels of Jorge Amado. Amado’s novel interpretation of Candomble and Umbanda Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, recently themes by artists such as Gilberto Gil, Maria made into a movie starring Sonia Braga that Bethânia, Caetano Velloso, and Jorge Bern. played to full houses in Brazil and the U.S., Many Umbanda songs by the composer J.B. uses a scene from a Candomble ceremony as Carvalho have been modernized by a pivotal point of the action. Perhaps the contemporary musicians. most internationally famous film depiction

SPIRITISM

The continuum of Brazilian popular fundamental works, The Book o f Spirits, religion may be roughly divided into five The Gospel According to Spiritism, and The basic traditions with definable tenets. Book o f Mediums. Although not Spiritism is founded on the doctrines of well-known in the English-speaking world, the 19th-century French doctor, educator they are widely distributed in Latin America. and philosopher Denizard Hipppolyte León Brazil commemorated Kardec’s writings Rivail, better known under his pen name, with the issue of a special postage stamp in Allan Kardec (1804-1964). Kardec believed the 1957. that spirits from another world—some souls Spiritism arrived in Brazil together with of the dead, others masters on the inner homeopathic medicine in the 1860s and was planes—contact terrestial beings in order to highly praised by Emperor Dom Pedro and give us messages of solace and lead us onto his chief minister, José Bonifácio. Today its the path of spiritual development. Although congregations include many members of the not a medium himself, he believed these intelligentsia and military leaders. Worship entities could be contacted through services usually are held in a simple room or mediums, and that it was one’s solemn chapel before an altar draped with a plain responsibility to prepare mind and body to white cloth, the only ornamentation receive these messages and then to heal consisting of two lit candles. Some chanting others with the power invested in one by the takes place in order to balance positive and spirits. This free charitable healing continues negative forces; mediums receive spirits; to be a a major activity of Spiritist (or healing is performed. There is always a “Kardecist”) and Umbanda groups in sermon. For the Spiritist death does not Brazil. exist; rather the individual merely passes on Kardec outlined his theories in three to a higher, spiritual form of existence. Thus

SPRING 1986 17 Spiritism is a religion of hope. Spiritists and their meanings as follows: blue, spirit; make an intensive study of the life and works orange, ambition or pride; red, passion or of Allan Kardec and accept no one else as a sensuality; dark red or pink, love or definitive authority. friendship; green, treachery; dark green, The reading of auras comprises an jealousy or cupidity; light green, tranquility; important part of Spiritist doctrine: these grey, depression or self-centeredness; dark psychically perceived subtle body radiations grey, cheating or lying or hypocrisy; light are believed to reflect an individual’s grey, doubts or fears; black, bitterness or progress on the path of spiritual revengefulness. development. Spiritists explain auric colors

UMBANDA

The best-known modern tradition is Umbanda leaders have written Umbanda. One source states that the name guidebooks for mediums which carefully Umbanda originated in Angola (from which outline a complex series of duties, many slaves were taken) where by the 19th responsibilities, and prohibitions. [4] century it had come to mean (1) the art of Generally speaking, Umbandist leaders consulting spirits of the dead, (2) the power agree that those who become mediums are of spirits to cure, and (3) the art of coercing bound to practice charity both ceremonially spirits to influence the living. [2] Other and in their daily lives by mitigating the Umbandists insist that the term is borrowed sufferings of all people on earth. Therefore, from a Sanskrit term, aum-bandha, Umbanda signifies a way of life of love, signifying the limit of the unlimited, or dedication, benevolence and renunciation of divine principle. [3] What is has come to the material world. There are seven mean for Brazilians is the union of all the commandments of the Law of Umbanda bandas, or groups, or rituals. that all practitioners must memorize. It is difficult to characterize Umbanda. Translated, they are (1) do not do to your To attribute to it a potpourri of Kardecist, neighbor what you would not wish him to do Roman Catholic, African, Eastern, and to you, (2) do not covet what is not yours, (3) Brazilian Indian religious elements is help the needy without asking questions, (4) somewhat facile, although it certainly does respect all religions because they come from extract elements from all of these. But the God, (5) do not criticize what you do not very fluidity, individuality of interpretation understand, (6) fulfill your mission even if it and elusiveness of Umbanda is the essence means personal sacrifice, (7) defend yourself of its distinctive character. from evildoers and resist evil. [5] 18 IRON MOUNTAIN In addition, mediums, also known as Umbanda hymns, such as J.B. Carvalho, filhos de santo, or children of the saints, were persecuted and regularly jailed, must attend all ceremonies, bater cabeca Umbanda has become a legalized religion (stretch out before their superiors touching and as a result institutionalized. Thus a their heads to the floor as a gesture of Deliberative Council of Umbanda, a obeisance), help the center’s leaders, and coordinating agency, and a Federation of wear clean, correct clothing. The last consist Umbanda to which a vast majority of the of white dresses and scarves for women, and terreiros are aligned, have been created. white trousers and shirts for men. Both sexes The influence of institutionalization is often wear white tennis shoes at ceremonies. additionally detected in the hierarchy of the This use of the color white seems to combine individual terreiros. (See appendix for a both Western hospital influence and a West more detailed description of the hierarchy.) African tradition of white as a sacred color, There is both an administrative board of associated with the dead. directors and a spirital hierarchy. The major Mediums must also behave in a dignified figures, i.e. the spiritual and often the manner, not eat heavy meals, not consume administrative heads as well, are the male meat from Thursday night through Friday, priest, the babalorixá and the female have faith in their spirit guides and terrestial priestess, the ialorixá. superiors, not share their knowledge or frequent other terreiros, and not perform a trabalho for anyone outside their own terreiro. Applying the proper name to each of the Punishments for breaches of the rules are traditions can be a problem even for stringent, and are meted out by the center’s Brazilians. Candomble may be the easiest to administrative board. They can include define: it is the most “African” of the suspension for a number of days or weeks Afro-Brazilian religions, combining a from the terreiro, expulsion, and the tombo, predominate Yoruban tradition with or loss of official mediumship. In the latter Dahomean and Bantu influences. A case the offender’s laminated card with her significant ritual difference between picture and the list of entities with whom she Candomblé and Umbanda appears to be that works is removed from its place on the wall in the former the initiated mediums are of the terreiro and destroyed. Morever, possessed by only a single “ orixa,” whereas guilty parties often punish themselves or, in the latter tradition the mediums, while from their point of view, are mistreated by having a given orixa under whose influence their spirit guides. After suspension from they work, are instead channels for deceased active practice a former medium may mortals—most frequently spirits of the incorporate her entity which then forces her, “ pretos velhos” or old black slaves; while in trance, to be thrown frenetically “ caboclos,” or unacculturated Brazilian against walls, floor, and furniture. The Indians, and “ criancas” or children. The guides may even choose to fechar a cabeca, first group is taken to signify the virtue of i.e. to prevent the transgressor from ever humility, the second that of simplicity and again incorporating an entity. will, and the third that of purity. Some Umbanda is generally a middle-class scholars draw parallels between these three religion, but people of all ages and from groups and the three major ethnic every sector of society and racial group components of Brazil: African, Indian, and participate. Unlike the situation during the European. 1920s and 30s, when centers were raided by Candomblé’s homeland has always been police vice squads and composers of northeastern Brazil, an area which is the

SPRING 1986 19 The blending o f elements from several traditions is apparent in the furnishings o f this altar.

20 IRON MOUNTAIN Food, flowers and candles are offered to Yemanjá on a beach in Rio de Janeiro.

SPRING 1986 21 CAROL DOW

White-clad worshippers gather on Rio beach for festival o f Yemanjá.

22 IRON MOUNTAIN most traditional and also most marked by system, encouraging rigid obedience to extremes of wealth. It is particularly authority. They accuse the Umbanda leaders associated with the city of Salvador in the of becoming indirect agents of the social and state of Bahia, whereas Macumba, political aims of the Brazilian federal Umbanda and Quimbanda are most government, a military dictatorship until associated with the cities of the south such as recently. They suggest also that Umbandists Rio. Candomble ritual songs are often in like to portray Quimbandists as a menace African languages, and there has been some so that they can charge money to undo back-and-forth traffic by religious leaders Quimbanda spells. Furthermore, they between Bahia and West African nations believe that Quimbanda is both morally and such as Nigeria. In addition, some Umbanda politically more liberal than Umbanda and leaders have also received Candomble that there is a welcome absence of “white” initiations, lending the strength to the notion moral values in Quimbanda. They claim too that Candomble, while more narrowly that Quimbanda rituals are more magically defined than Umbanda, is seen as “ senior” effective. by some Umbandists. Perhaps an explanation of the contrasting The term “ Macumba” is often applied to precepts of these two sects may be found in Afro-Brazilian traditions generally, but has the analogy of a Tarot card reading. A Tarot a negative connotation particularly to card may be read right side up or upside Umbandists, who stress the universal nature down, and many readers attach a specific of their faith and its connections with significance to the card according to its European Theosophy and Spiritism. position. But other readers maintain that the “Quimbanda” is used by Umbandists and meaning of the card is essentially the same others to the works of those practitioners and that a reversed card only means that the who are said to perform rituals with the reader should search for an interpretation of purpose of injuring another person or the situation from a less-common point of satisfying someone’s purely sexual desires. view. In the same way, Umbanda and On the other hand, self-confessed Quimbanda magic are essentially the same Quimbandists claim that Umbandists try too phenomena viewed in differing lights. hard to work within the socio-political

TERREIROS

The air hangs heavy with the heady scent small space are tense and watchful. of herbal incense: the hard-packed ground Suddenly, drums erupt and the ritual dance reflects the smoldering heat of the tropical begins. Supple figures clad in ethereal white night; the faces of those crowded into the garb sway to the persistent rhythm. Faster SPRING 1986 23 and faster the beat accelerates until at a censing of the room by one of the initiates, a crescendo one dancer suspends her process called defumacao. The initiates movements and starts to shake violently, (mediums) enter and stand in a circle to be then drops writhing to the floor. She is censed. The chefe may pray aloud to God immediately raised and carried away by and the orixas, and a ponto (short sacred others who have not participated in the song) is sung by all, often beginning, dance. Soon another dancer becomes “Abrimos a nossa gira, com Deus e a Nossa similarly affected, then another and yet Senhora.” (“Gira” literally means “turn,” another. The ritual of a African-influenced but is the common term to describe a Umbanda terreiro has begun. (Ritual styles ceremony. The translation would be: “We vary: a more Kardecist-influenced group, for open our ceremony with God and Our example, would not have drumming and Lady.”) dancing, but perhaps choral singing and The pontos are accompanied by less-violent possession of the mediums.) drumming, and are often sung in a Although most Umbanda rituals call-and-response manner. The opening beginning in the evening, ritual preparations pontos are followed by others to each of the may begin earlier in the day. The terreiro, if major Umbanda divinities. The pace an indoor room, is usually oriented to the quickens; people clap hands and the east. An urban congregation typically will mediums circle the open area in a modified rent or build a structure that provides a large samba step. A class of spirits, e.g. caboclos, assembly room perhaps 30 by 50 feet, is called with pontos sung by mediums and dressing rooms for the mediums and perhaps members of the congregation. Some initiates a snack bar and office. The terreiro is become possessed: they stop dancing, divided across by a low fence (similar to the change expression, sway and jerk their altar rail in some churches) that divides the bodies. When they straighten up they have mediums’ dancing area from the area where received the appropriate facial expression members of the congregation sit on rows of and body language for their spirits; chairs. caboclos, for instance, wear stern Against the walls are decorated altars expressions, utter loud cries (stereotyped holding statues of Catholic saints and Indian war cries), dance with a stamping Umbanda spirits (e.g. preto velho) plus motion and draw imaginary bows. flowers and other religious objects. The possessing entities pay homage to the Initiates arrive first, and after greeting the altar and embrace each other and members chefe, caretaker and firstcomers, retire to of the congregation, crossing into the other change into their Umbanda uniforms: white part of the room to do so. Non-possessed dresses like nurses’ uniforms for the women; initiates bring their ritual acoutrements white shirts and trousers or one-piece (feather headresses, beads) and food coveralls for the men. All uniforms have the offerings. The offerings are not seen as insignia of the centro, its ponto riscado (lit: sacrifice, but as fuel to sustain the astral scratched diagram) embroidered on the left force of the possessing entity. When most breast pocket. mediums are possessed, the ceremony may Members of the congregation arrive and seem to have dissolved into random activity; chat quietly until the ceremony begins. They singing and clapping have stopped. Now, are likely to request a ficha or token from an however, the consultations, which are what attendant on hand that will permit them to people have come for, will begin. consult during the ceremony with the spirit The attendant in charge of collecting the of their choice. fichas or tokens steps to the gate and calls, The actual ceremony begins with the for instance, “Caboclo Tupinamba, 24 IRON MOUNTAIN Numero Um.” In other words, “Will the once a week and are dedicated to specific person holding Ticket No. One for the orixás or other entities, such as the Pai Joao Amazonian Indian spirit named Tupinamba mentioned above. Sometimes the last week [who regularly possesses one or more of the of the month is devoted to the line of Exu mediums] please come forward.” The spirits, who are conceived of, variously, as person steps up, removes his shoes, and goes “messengers and facilitators of the gods,” to stand in front of the medium—perhaps a “unevolved beings,” “wicked,” or simply a white-haired woman of European necessary evil, but entities also requiring descent—“ridden” by Tupinamba. help with their spiritual progress, in the Smoking the omnipresent emblematic Umbanda view. (The Quimbanda view is cigar, the caboclo gives a piercing cry, hugs more pragmatic: only Éxu and his minions the questioner, and begins a ritual cleansing can do certain things.) involving “passes,” in which he brushes the Some closed sessions are for the spiritual person’s body lightly with his fingertips to development of mediums or for initiations. draw off negative psychic fluids. Then the In Candomblé and some Quimbanda caboclo smudges the petitioner with the cigar centers, initiates must remain for weeks on smoke. At last he asks, “What is your straw mats in solitary confinement, with problem, my child.” Other similar their heads shaven, while they are fed special consultations are going on throughout the (not necessarily appetizing) food and bathed ritual portion of the room. Assistants take in sacred herbs. But initiates affirm that the down the spirits’ instructions as to pain and discomfort are necessary to the cleansings, offerings, ritual baths and other purification of their bodies in preparation to physical or psychic cures. Exorcisms and become mediums. psychic cleansings are often performed on On the other hand, there are many the spot. beautiful ceremonies in which the public As the evening wears on, the terreiro takes part. For example, December 31 in Rio empties; clients whose questions have been and February 2 in Salvador are dedicated to answered drift homeward. The spirits also the sea goddess Yemanjá (often viewed as begin to depart, leaving their mediums equivalent with one or another aspect of the exhausted. Finally the chefe leads a series of Virgin Mary). In Rio, crowds numbering in pontos and closing prayers, then all the the tens of thousands line the city’s famous mediums change to their street clothes and beaches, where celebrants build altars in the go home sometime around midnight or sand and fill them with candles, roses, food, after. The chefe, (another name for the champagne and gifts for Yemanjá. At babalorixá) who has been the channel for his midnight they launch into the sea tiny boats tutelary spirit, a preto velho named Pai loaded with their offerings. As firecrackers Joao (Grandpa John), has a white-collar burst from atop the adjacent skyscrapers to managerial job to go to in the morning. announce the new year, som e worshippers Despite leading sessions three times a week, dive into the black sea for a purification he says he feels refreshed and relaxed by his bath. Others sing pontos, the ritual songs, religious duties. Although the gods or orixas and dance on the beach. Frequently the have been invoked and saluted, it is the memberships of terreiros assemble together lower-ranking spirits, the pretos velhos, and perform rituals and give consultations to caboclos and criancas, who have done the anyone who comes by. consulting work. In all, popular religion has become an A distinction is made between closed integral part of Brazilian society, impossible sessions for initiates only and services for the to ignore and necessary for an understanding public. Open rituals are performed at least of the Brazilian mind. These beliefs and SPRING 1986 25 practices, borrowed from different religions points of comparison for a cross-cultural and developed to meet the spiritual needs of analysis of magical religion. the Brazilian people, offer provocative

APPENDIX

An Umbanda terreiro is governed by a practice healing. group of administrative officers who may or Ialorixá (northeast) or mae de santo may not overlap with the spiritual hierarchy. (vernacular)—female leader. Candomble These typically include a president, vice centers are perhaps more often headed by president, first secretary, second secretary, women than Umbanda centers. treasurer and fiscal counsel. These are Corpo mediúnico—the ritual corps, responsible for the establishment under the consisting of médiuns de consulta law, dealing with the police and with any (consulting mediums), full initiates who irregularity within the center. serve as aparelhos (vehicles) or cavalos The spiritual hierarchy is described by (horses) for the spirit guides; and médiuns different terms in different parts of the em desenvolvimento (mediums in training) nation: in lesser stages of ritual preparation. Novices Babalorixá (northeast Brazil), Babalӓo are called cambonos. Mediums generally are (Rio de Janeiro), pai de santo (general called filhas or filhos de santo. vernacular)—male leader in charge of all Centers may also have a variety of other rituals; teaches initiates, resolves questions officers: the drummers, persons in charge of in the terrerio; predicts future by throwing cleaning and m aintain the building and the buzios (divinitory cowrie shells); may altars, cooks, and so forth.

Suggested Reading

The greatest number of books on Interpenetration o f Civilizations. Baltimore: Umbanda, Candomblé etc., are published Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. in Brazil in Portuguese. Some of the better (Originally published in Paris in 1960). English-language popular and scholarly Bastide, a reknowned Sao Paulo sociologist, works are listed below. examines the growth of Afro-Brazilian religion from a Marxian social-scientific Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of viewpoint. Although his emphasis on these Brazil: Toward a Sociology o f the religions as favored by the lower classes is no 26 IRON MOUNTAIN longer as true as when he did his research, Umbanda elements that rapidly spread this book remains a key work on the topic. through the more Africanized Batuque. Brown, Diana DeG. Umbanda: Religion McGregor, Pedro. Jesus o f the Spirits. and Politics in Urban Brazil. Ann Arbor, (Also published as The Moon and Two Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1985. Mountains and Brazilian Magic: Is it the Brown, an American anthropologist, studied Answer?). New York: Stein and Day, 1967. Umbanda in the 1960s and ‘70s. As her Drawing heavily on the pioneer Brazilian subtitle indicates, she is mainly concerned sociologist Gilberto Freyre, McGregor, a with the compromises Umbanda has made Brazilian, has written an amiable history of on its road from illegality to legitimacy. Afro-Brazilian religion in general and Focusing on its growth among urban Umbanda in particular that seeks to present middle-class Brazilians, she argues that this its best side to the foreign reader. Freyre group has gradually “whitened” the advanced the thesis that Brazil’s was a religion, redefining its theology and ritual in unique mixed-blood civilization; McGregor conformity with their own class interests. In likewise believes that Umbanda is the the last 20 years, she writes, Umbanda has spiritual path best suited for Brazilians. becomes “more sedate, bureaucratic, nationalistic, and above all, a de-Africanized Simpson, George Eaton. Black Religions form of religious practice.” Brown sees the in the New World. New York: Columbia client-spirit guide relationship has University Press, 1978. This book brings duplicating the client-patron relationships together material published over a period of that provide the means by which things get four decades by Simpson, an anthropologist done in Brazilian politics and society. She who worked primarily in the Caribbean. He also points out ways in which politicians and took as his topic the African Diaspora in heads of terreiros have cooperated to turn North America, the West Indies and Latin out the Umbandist vote in elections. The America, which despite its foundation in book is useful also for its history of slavery he viewed as only the latest in a series Umbanda in the 20th century and its of movements of people out in various description of how it became promoted as directions from sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. to the “true national religion” of Brazil. ancient Egypt, to the Muslim Middle East). Simpson’s work makes it possible to see the Leacock, Seth and Ruth. Spirits o f the Deep: organic connections between traditions such A Study o f an Afro-Brazilian Cult. Garden as Umbanda, Voudoun, the Shouters of City, New York: Doubleday & Co. Inc. Trinidad, and the black Protestant churches 1972. In the early 1960s the Leacocks, in the United States. American anthropologists, visited Belem, a city in northern Brazil, and documented the St. Clair, David. Drum and Candle. New religions and social world of followers of York: Bell Publishing Co., 1971. An Batuque, an Afro-Brazilian tradition similar American journalist in Brazil samples the to Candomble. In their work one may also entire range of Candomble and Umbanda, see the larger syncretizing and unifying writing a first-person account of the people influence of Umbanda on the local cult, in he met and the experiences he had, in the particular after one influential local leader there are some things Science cannot visited Rio Umbandists and introduced explain” vein.

SPRING 1986 27 NOTES

1. The changes were made by the 1977 General Assembly 3. This statement was made by Lilian Ribeiro, secretary of Itaici of bishops of the Brazilian Roman Catholic of the National Deliberative Council of Umbanda, Church and appear in the liturgic Directory for Mass quoted in Ateneia Feijo, “ Umbanda,” Gente (May with Popular Groups. 1977) p. 102.

2. Translated from Jose Ribeiro, Ceremonias da 4. Most of these guides are published by Editô ra Eco in Umbanda e do Candomblé (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Rio, e.g. Pompilio Possera de Eufrazio, Catecismo do E co ,1974)p .35. Umbandista, 1974.

28 IRON MOUNTAIN Book Reviews

Narratives of the Tipi Way

STRAIGHT WITH THE MEDICINE: Narratives of Washoe Followers of the Tipi Way. As told to Warren L. d’Azevedo. Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books, 1985. 54 pages. $5.95, paper. (P.O. Box 9145, Berkeley, Calif. 94709). While the Washoe elders find hope and Warren d’Azevedo’s Straight with the purpose in their religion, peyote is more than Medicine is an intriguing collection of peyote springboard from a hopeless condition. stories told by seven Washoe elders who are Often studies on the peyote religion leave followers of Tipi Way—the Native the reader with the idea that if it were not for American Church. As editor, d’Azevedo has the poverty, alcoholism, and apathy to be struggled to maintain both the accuracy and found among many Native Americans, there the style of these Washoe accounts. Herein, would be little need for a religious tradition Straight with the Medicine differs from the such as Tipi Way. These Washoe elders are more traditional accounts of La Barre, very specific that while peyote has been Marriott and Rachlin, Anderson, and instrumental in offsetting the desperate Stewart. In d’Azevedo’s work actual Washoe situation, it is more than a Washoe stories form an oral history that psychological or spiritual distraction. The manages to capture the uniqueness of message of Tipi Way is to be found in prayer religion, ritual and worldview. and song. Therein is its rhythm: a spiritual Washoe country sits atop a landscape that and physical bond within a ceremonial is hot, dry and desperate. It spreads context. unevenly along the valleys of western Nevada and dots the eastern slopes of the “ The way a man sings shows you what Sierra Nevada in southern California. Of the kind of person he is. If he sings good, he can few plants that do manage to rise above the help people. His song goes through them and desert floor of the Washoe, peyote is not the medicine is working. Singing is like one. Washoe people have to travel further praying ... it’s the same thing. When we sing south to obtain their ceremonial peyote here it is for a reason. That’s the Indian way. buttons. In the description of the Washoes’ travel in search of peyote one finds an While the Washoe elders in this book do example of just how this book springs to life: provide us with an interesting and in-depth account of the ritual and ceremony inherent “ So maybe somebody got to make a run in Tipi Way, they also give us reason to down to Texas. Most of the Members is speculate on the more phenomenological pretty broke right now. If I can get a couple nature of the gift of peyote and its potential of tires and fix the radiator maybe my car pathway to the “ sacred” . The singing and can make it. It’s my job if nobody else can praying that these elders allude to breaks do it. Maybe I’ll take my wife and kids. They with the commonly held view of a “pure ain’t seen that Indian country down there. peyote experience,” often referred to as Anyway, somebody got to do it.” either hallucinogenic or visionary, and draw SPRING 1986 29 us much closer to the universal quality of the account of this struggle. He has kept it “ sacred” . personal in style and phenomenological in I introduce the “ sacred” here not only scope. And, in refusing the term because it encapsulates the mood of Tipi “ informant” in favor of “ friend” he has Way, but also because it somewhat typifies steadfastly allowed these followers of Tipi the setting in which I was introduced to Way to speak for themselves: “With this Straight with the Medicine. I first read little herb you can hear all the Indians in the d’Azevedo’s account while I was on Fort world singing.” —Greg Heming. Belknap Reservation in north central Montana, researching sweat lodge ceremonial songs as they were sung by Magicians of the Society of Inner Light Assiniboine and Gros Ventre people. Dark and cold northern nights were passed in DANCERS TO THE GODS: THE front of the woodstove enjoying aloud such MAGICAL RECORDS OF CHARLES stories as “ Creation,” “ Feathers,” and SEYMOUR AND CHRISTINE HARTLEY “ Two Friends” . On one occasion I had just 1937-1939. Edited and introduced by Alan been told in the sweat lodge that the song Richardson. Wellingborough, one Gros Ventre man was preparing to sing Northamptonshire, UK: The Aquarian was “ not written by a person, it was not Press, 1985. 192 pages, notes, index. UK from this land.” Later that night in front of 6.95, paper. the fire I again read aloud a Washoe account, “ Songs” : My paper in the last issue of Iron Mountain suggested that the magical novels “ But these here Peyote songs...these of Dion Fortune (penname of Violet M. Church songs...is the best we got in this Tipi Firth) played a part in the modern Way. They come from way back. They been development of Anglo-American Neo-Pagan tried out by Indians all over for a long time. Witchcraft that began around 1940 and It’s best to use them in there. We don’t have “ went public” in the 1950s. It only to know what them words mean. They ain’t mentioned briefly her husband, the Welsh like ordinary words. Maybe they from some doctor Thomas Evans, about whom I found language of another tribe. Maybe they from no information in the short biographical language people a long time ago speak on entries available about Fortune. I regret now this earth, or maybe it is from someplace we that while writing that paper in the spring of don’t know about.” 1985 Alan Richardson’s Dancers to the Gods was not available in this country, because Mircea Eliade once said in describing the Richardson’s personal knowledge of the inherent elusiveness of his hierophanies that history of English occultism, combined with in doing so we are confronted by a his journalistic legwork, has produced the mysterious act—the manifestation of a first work that gets beneath the surface of different order. A reality that does not Fortune’s life and of the order she founded, belong to this world. There is, for me, a The Society of Inner Light. Mention is made “tone” here that cannot be overlooked. The in this book of an upcoming biography of search for the “ sacred” is not always Dion Fortune by Richardson; reading ordinary. Its description is often mystifying. Dancers to the Gods will whet the reader’s The understanding of it is often terrifying. appetite for that work when it comes. Yet, this challenge has not be circumvented Richardson reveals that Evans and Col. by the Washoe followers of Tipi Way. And Charles Seymour were both strong male d’Azevedo has provided us with an honest figures in Fortune’s life, serving as 30 IRON MOUNTAIN prototypes in her fiction and, particularly in and priestess. Reading these gives a much Evans’s case, giving her writing the Pagan clearer picture of the esoteric history and cast so noticeable in such novels as The ideas that underlie Fortune’s novels; here, Goat-Foot God, The Winged Bull and The for example, one may see develop a history Sea Priestess. Evans, Richardson suggests, of past lives the senior members of Fortune’s was the prototype for Murchison the order believed they shared, as well as the dejected war veteran drawn into a magical ideas brought out in Hartley’s later book, battle in The Winged Bull, while Seymour’s The Western Mystery Tradition. character underlies the fictional Col. Combined with Richardson’s Brangwyn, Murchison’s former knowledgeable commentary, these make commanding officer and later his initiator Dancers to the Gods into a significant piece into the esoteric mysteries, as it also of the documenting of what is indeed a underlies the shadowy Priest of the Moon in Western mystery tradition.—Chas S. Clifton The Sea Priestess. Christine Hartley (also known as Christine Campbell Thomson), died in 1985 at the age of 88. By then she had became Fortune’s magical heiress, Richardson suggests, even though she and Seymour left the SOL, which as is often the case could not accommodate so many strong personalities. She was a literary agent (the firm she started, Campbell Thomson & McLaughlin Ltd., is still in business), and among her authors was the novelist J.W. Brodie-Innes, a member of the original Order of the Golden Dawn, the magical fraternity from which most recent ceremonial magic has sprung. He was the first to suggest that she had a native aptitude for occult studies, a suggestion she ignored at first. In 1927, however, Fortune walked into her office with a manuscript, although it Witches, Sci-Fi, Plagiarism was not until 1932 that Fortune suggested Hartley attend a lecture of ceremonial magic DEVIANCE AND MORAL BOUNDAR- and her esoteric studies really began, IES: Witchcraft, the Occult together with a period of collaboration Science Fiction, Deviant Sciences and during Fortune’s most prolific decade for Scientists. By Nachman Ben-Yehuda. fiction, in which Hartley served as her editor Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. and agent. 260 pages, index. $25, hardcover. (5801 S. Seymour was 52 to Hartley’s 35, Ellis Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60637) Anglo-Irish, a veteran of the Boer War, World War I, and various Imperial police As Professor Ben-Yehuda is quick to actions; and a scholarly Mason who may point out, sociologists have long been have found his way into one of the Golden attracted to small-scale and sensational types Dawn temples. The second portion of this of deviances from a given community’s or book contains their joint records of a series group’s norms. The subtitles of this book of magical meditations, visualizations and might suggests he feels the same attraction, rituals in which they took the roles of priest but in first chapter, in which he lays out his

SPRING 1986 31 theoretical foundations, he offers the thesis commercialization of each, e.g. the that “ deviance” in the sociological sense is phenomenon of science fiction conventions. “ not a marginal phenomenon in society, but The most intriguing common element he rather a central one.” The creation or identifies is that both groups see themselves maintenance of “ deviant belief systems” can as embodying or developing the moral order function to define the boundaries of what is of “the future;” hence they exemplify orthodox and also to open the door to deviance in the service of change. In possible change. It is another take on the response, bodies such as various churches notion that “ a religion defines itself by its and “ debunking” organizations use them to heresies.” reinforce their own moral boundaries. In brief, Ben-Yehuda sees the large-scale Ben-Yehuda is probably at his best in the witch hunts of the Renaissance as—in study of deviant science and scientists, and Catholic countries—serving to reinforce the anyone who has enjoyed The Case o f the power of the Church in the face of a rising Midwife Toad, studied the life of Tesla or secularism, and also reflecting the social Reich, or seen the politics played out of stress caused by inflation, pestilence, rising when names of researchers are listed on a populations, and the upheavals in published paper will find this portion of the agriculture caused by the onset of the Little book most original and worthwhile. Despite Age Age (a period lasting from circa 1300 the notion of “ peer review,” the policing into the mid-1700s). In addition, the function of the scientific community is vary Renaissance was a period of later marriage weak; it may take decades for a “ rogue compared to earlier centuries, with more researcher” to be “ brought to justice,” one women remaining unmarried and often might say. Likewise, it often seems that new forced to support themselves. These changes ideas of relative contemporary orthodoxy, in women’s status, he is not the first to such as the theory of continental drift, are argue, made it easier for both men and only accepted within a scientific community married women to project feelings of when their most prestigious opponents are resentment and guilt onto first, unmarried dead. Unfortunately, their proponents by women, and later, all women. He writes, then may also be deceased, or worse, “ Therefore, the female witch, using sex to rejected and disgraced; hence both both the corrupt the world, was a suasive image’ of crank and the visionary, when they are not great power in an ideology that aimed to rid one and the same, may justify themselves by the world of Satan’s power, of all the effects saying “ They laughed at Galileo too.” of social change, and to restore its moral boundaries.” His analysis of “ the occult” (that Magical Magazines Multiply catch-all term) is briefer—four pages, and based primarily on the work of Edward MAGICAL BLEND. P.O. Box 1303, San Tiryakian, Andrew Greeley and Marcello Francisco, California 94101. $12/year/4 Truzzi, which in turn reflects largely the issues ($16 overseas). “ psychedelic era” of 1965-75. Like Greeley, Ben-Yehuda is aware of the frequent SHAMAN’S DRUM: A Journal of connection between esotericism and Experiential Shamanism. Cross-Cultural science-fiction, as once epitomized in the Shamanism Network. P.O. Box 2636, Church of All Worlds, but he can’t quite Berkeley, California 94702. $15/year/4 figure why it exists. He sees both as issues. providing a transcendent structure in a secular world, but also notes the GNOSIS: A Journal of the Western Inner 32 IRON MOUNTAIN Traditions. Lumen Foundation, P.O. Box intellectually demanding. Founder and 14217, San Francisco, California 94114. editor Jay Kinney, also has also edited $15/2 years/4 issues (foreign and institution editions of Co-Evolution Quarterly/The subscriptions $20.) Whole Earth Review, also created an outstanding underground comicbook of the These three publications share something 1970s, Occult L aff Riot. Underneath the besides roots in the Bay Area; they indicate a satire, however, was someone prepared sufficient level of fluency with Western eventually to edit a magazine that tries to magical traditions and with multi-cultural balance “the more contemplative Mystical forms of shamanism that publishers concerns [and] the more active Occult (operating in the latter two cases as practices.” To continue one of his editorial nonprofit foundations, and why not?) have statements, “May people who follow sharly decided to put out fullsized, consumer-type defined spiritual or religious paths tend to magazines for readers involved with or view ideas of practices associated with “the interested in them. Occult” as invariably tainted by egotism, Senior member of the trio is Magical materialism, and self-deception. Conversely, Blend, now up to issue 13. We noticed in the many of the people most interested in most recent letters column that some readers so-called occult subjects view themselves as are complaining about “hard-edged practical sorts with little use for what they graphics” and not enough “ sunshine.” We consider unworldly mysticism. While there is used to fault sometimes in the past for too some truth to these caricatures, on the whole much of a “ clouds and flowers and they strike us here at Gnosis as a false unicorns” approach to things, but maybe dichotomy, and one not borne out by the the editors should take these letters as Western esoteric traditions themselves. compliments on the publication’s increasing Hence our interest in publishing material maturity. Also the most “New Age” and encompassing both areas.” non-critical of the three, a typical issue (the Gnosis’s second issue, now on sale or most recent), might include articles about or available by mail, focuses on “Magic and interviews with as diverse a group as Tradition.” The third issue will have as its Timothy Leary (now working on theme the Kabbalah, and will include a mind-expanding software—don’t tell us major interview with Reb Zalman you’re suprised), the psychic author Ruth Schachter-Shalomi. Compared to Magical Montgomery, and a non-celebrity English Blend, Gnosis tends to publisher longer, priest who heads an ecumenical ashram in more involved material, with less of a India, combined with introductory articles self-help emphasis. on creative visualization, numerology and When we met Timothy White, director of the Tarot. Magical Blend, true to its name, Shaman’s Drum, it was in the company of also includes stories, poetry and full-color someone representing Yoga Journal, and we art. Looking at the faultless color have ever since linked the two conceptually, reproduction makes us think sometimes that although there is no organizational link this magazine’s greatest achievement may between them. Both assume the reader’s have been the blending of interest in and commitment to a certain drawn-shades-at-midnight “ occultism” with group of disciplines and a worldview. While a sort of Human Potential Movement editorially independent, Shaman’s Drum openness and optimism. Both could benefit might be seen as the organ of North from it. American neo-shamanism as personified by Gnosis, while graphically similar to such people as Michael Harner and Brooke Magical Blend, tends to be more Medicine Eagle, to name two members of its SPRING 1986 33 editorial advisory board. A typical issue will Handbooks for Urban Shamans include classic accounts of shamanism from the anthropological literature, an account of SHAMAN’S NOTES (Volume 1: Personal some eager American apprenticing himself Power: Development—Use—Maintenance. or herself to a colorful shaman from another 46 pp.) (Volume 2: Structure of Complete culture, and—perhaps the best part—some Belief Systems. 32 pp.) (Volume 3: Personal reflective first-person material on the actual Rite, Ritual, Ceremony. 46 pp.) Church of here-and-now use of dreams, trance and so Seven Arrows, 4385 Hoyt St., #201, forth to pragmatic ends. Wheatridge, Colorado 80033. $5 each, Like the other two magazines here saddle-stitched, paper. reviewed, Shaman’s Drum is non-dogmatic, presenting its editorial content in the context The Church of Seven Arrows is a of the individual spiritual quest. When they neo-shamanic, theologically Pagan, tried to attract advertisers with the slogan organization with an active teaching and “ Let us drum up business for you,” some counseling practice in the Denver readers attacked them for not being metropolitan area. These three handbooks “ spiritual” enough. What Shaman’s Drum are used in sessions teaching the sees itself as becoming, according to editor development of personal power and Debra Carroll, is an “ open network” for the effectiveness in everyday life, and emphasize discussion of controversies in the field, and a solo over group or community practice. One place where by reading accounts of other thing that may put off some readers is an persons’ experiences, “ neophytes and attempt to recapture typographically the leaders alike can benefit from deeper, very voice inflections of George Dew, Seven broader understanding of the foundations Arrows’s founder, by capitalizing or and ramifications of shamanic practices.” underlining every third or fourth word. So far, one controversy lightly touched on The first volume is devoted to has been the issue of “ workshop determining one’s deepest goals and shamanism.” In its defense, Shaman’s clarifying decision-making in one’s own life. Drum responded, “ the journey of a Although it includes some spiritual exercises, thousand miles may, and often does, begin most of the first slim volume is given over to with a single workshop experience ... Even lessons on such topics as not accepting guilt for those who don’t complete the journey, for actions or decisions one did not the experience may be helpful and not unlike personally make. some occasionally attending ceremonies in a The second book outlines the Seven traditional society.” Arrows worldview, openly stated as We ourselves have often wondered about syncretizing American Indian (Plains and the issue of “magic out of cultural context;” some Pueblo tribes), some Vedic material nevertheless, as the group of people centered and the work of modern Americans such as on neo-shamanism reaches at least a sort of Edgar Cayce and L. Ron Hubbard. It is subculture stage, Shaman’s Drum may have essentially the Seven Arrows catechism. a valid point, plus it’s well-positioned to be It is in the third volume one finds specific that subculture’s print forum. directions for the creating of ritual space, All three of these magazines, incidentally, linking up with the energies and influences have or are acquiring national distribution of the natural world, and finding a “ sacred through “ alternative distributors” such as spot” and a totem spirit guide. We think, Prairie News of Chicago, so they should be however, that the third book at a minimum available on newstands somewhere in most should be studied in conjunction with the major cities, as well as by subscription. second in order to achieve some sort of 34 IRON MOUNTAIN totality—and that’s if you think you already STEIN are in control of your life. The progression The Superior Woman of the three volumes makes sense; there is no Supports point in attempting any sort of esoteric work Good changes. until the basics are taken care of. Changes in matriarchy occur by consensus of the Sisters. The Superior Woman and her community work for change through spiritual development and connectedness to the Wheel of Life and the Goddess. When change is for the gain and benefit of all, there is process and success. The Superior Woman supports changes that bring good.

WILHELM/BAYNES Remorse disappears. Men believe him. Changing the form of government brings good fortune.

Radical changes require adequate authority. A man must have inner strength as well as A Separatist Feminist ICHING influential position. What he does must correspond with a higher truth and must not THE KWAN YIN BOOK OF CHANGES. spring from arbitrary or petty motives; then By Diane Stein. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn it brings good fortune. If a revolution is not Publications, 1985. 225 pages, appendices. founded on such inner truth, the results are $12.95, paper. bad, and it has no success. For in the end men will support only those undertakings The Kwan Yin Book of Changes is exactly which they feel instinctively to be just. what Merlin Stone in a cover blurb says it is not: “ a feminist inversion of the very masculist (sic) I Ching as we know it.” The differences are apparent. Certainly Wherever the I Ching in the familiar Stein’s version will appeal strongly to those Wilhelm/Baynes translation puts “the women who are aware of oppression and Superior Man” (in other words, the person who would reject hierarchical structure, who follows the oracle’s advice), Stein puts whether in government, business or the “the Superior Woman.” The introduction university. But like the Tao Teh Ching, the 1 does not describe this as an original Ching arose out of the ancient Chinese translation from Chinese; it is rather a debate over political philosophy, in which rendition based on those translations already the ordered hierarchy of Earth, Humanity available. and Heaven was seen as fundamental. Its To get the flavor of The Kwan Yin, take a intended readers were aristocrats, mandarins passage at random ... Nine in the fourth line and bureaucrats. As oracles, the traditional 1 of Hexagram 49, Ko, which Stein calls Ching translations excel for people dealing “Change and Transformation” and which with hierarchies and their office politics. Wilhelm/Baynes translates as “ Revolution (“The matriarchy,” if it existed, would have (Molting).” its politics too.) For example, Hexagram 54, SPRING 1986 35 “The Marrying Maiden,” uses as its the Western mystery tradition and Qabalah, metaphor a traditional Chinese marriage, compares and contrast that esoteric tradition with the new wife subservient to husband, with the magical worldview set out in the mother-in-law, and senior wives, that early works of Carlos Castaneda. (This book modern Western women find abhorrent. was completed in 1977 and first published in But, it can perfectly describe the situation of 1978.) As he writes, “ My intention in this the new employee or the junior-most faculty book is to compare Carlos Castaneda’s member and it rightly advises, “ Don’t rock exposition of don Juan’s Mexican sorcery the boat, now is the time to be passive.” with other modes of shamanistic activity, Stein changes it to describe an egalitarian and also with other approaches to inner Lesbian relationship, which if nothing else space. But my essential aim is to show that reduces the range of oracular readings there is a basically Western shamanism possible. which uses Western symbols and is easily Actually, the most truly non-sexist accessible. I refer to the magic of the English translation of the I Ching is Qabalah and the Tarot.” probably Sam Reifler’s, published as a This book is more valuable for the person Bantam paperback in 1974 and still available familiar with Castaneda but not with the in used bookstores sometimes. It has a “ New Western mystery tradition than it would be Age” feel just as Stein’s has a feminist for someone in the opposite situation; that separatist feel, but it is worth reading for person, for instance, would find the 45 or so men and women both who might feel put off pages devoted to the major cards of the by the political-theory language of the more Tarot deck to be redundant. Drury sets out faithful translations. to summarize Castaneda, Timothy Leary, out-of-body-experience researchers like Robert Monroe, John Lilly, Aleister Crowley and other figures in the exploration of consciousness, adds some Tantric Yoga, and then to show how the magicians of the Golden Dawn and other Western occultists trod and mapped the same paths. Ultimately, his advocacy of Qabalistic magical development is based on his belief that in it the milestones on the inner paths are better placed so that “we know where we are when we arrive at any particular point on the inward journey.” As a comparative work between these Don Juan Meets the Golden Dawn different paths, Don Juan, Mescalito and Modern Magic suffers from being crammed DON JUAN, MESCALITO AND with so much information that the author is MODERN MAGIC: THE MYTHOLOGY constantly setting off on a fresh tack. In OF INNER SPACE. By Nevil Drury. addition, assuming (rightly so) the London: Arkana, 1985. 236 pages, notes, possibility of the ignorance in his audience index. $8.95, paper. (US office: 9 Park St., of one or the other set of names, groups, Boston, Mass. 02108). books, and so on, he must constantly stop to give history lectures and explain who people In Don Juan, Mescalito and Modern were in their historical contexts. All this, Magic, Nevil Drury, an Australian writer on once the appendix-type sections are 36 IRON MOUNTAIN subtracted, in a little more than 100 pages. occult field of knowledge that can at least Hence this book cannot be said to be help one to be able to converse intelligently exhaustive or the last word, but there is with a Qabalist. Most interesting and useful plenty here to get the student of comparative to me were the correspondence charts and magical systems and comparative tables. The Qabala is flexible and open to consciousness exploration started. personal interpretation and adaptation. Reed quotes her teacher as saying, “ A good witch is eclectic: she’ll steal anything that A Pagan-Qabalistic Synthesis works.” She also says, “ The Tree has grown and flowered since its introduction to THE WITCHES’ QABALA: BOOK I, THE humanity ... It is here for you to learn from GODDESS AND THE TREE. By Ellen and for you to contribute to.” Qabalist and Cannon Reed. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn non-Qabalist alike should find The Witches' Publications, 1985. 150 pages, illustrations, Qabala an intriguing and potentially useful index, bibliography. $7.95, paper. addition to their libraries.—Carrie Brennan. In the preface to The Witches' Qabala Ellen Reed states, “ Pagans were missing the The God in the Forest value of Qabala because of the way the information was worded, and that seemed a THE SACRED PAW: The Bear in Nature, horrible waste to me.” She also affirms her Myth and Literature. By Paul Shepard and belief that Qabala is acceptable to modern Barry Sanders. Afterword by Gary Snyder. Pagans if presented correctly. The book New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1985. 244 attempts to provide a bridge, then, between pages, illustrations, photographs, index, the two systems. bibliography. $17.95, cloth. Off and on over the years I, like many other Pagans, have looked at the Qabala, A group of traditional stories, the Bear tried to read about it, heard others talk Son stories, found among Indian tribes in about it, and generally been put off by the the western United States and Canada, tell apparent patriarchal mindset of those who how the son of a human woman and a bear compiled and discussed it. When I saw a taught people how to hunt, to set snares, to copy of The Witches' Qabala my first sing songs, to find food in the woods. thought was, “ Excuse me, aren’t they Similar stories are found elsewhere in bear mutually exclusive?” Well, maybe not. country around the world. They not only By the means of the “ Charge of the show how the omnivorous bear—tearing up Goddess,” Reed leads one step by step a stump for grubs, catching fish, eating through the branches of the Qabalistic Tree berries—taught people what was edible, but of Life. In her view, it can be a “ file cabinet they show how people in turn found divinity to contain the Universe.” The Goddess and in the bear. Something like 40,000 years have the God both have a place in the Qabala’ the passed since Neaderthal people stacked up sphere of Binah is the essence of the Goddess bear skulls in European cave shrines, but toy and that of Chokmah, the God. Both are stores still do a good business in stuffed beneath and subordinate to the essentially bears. And children have nightmares about unknowable Godhead that transcends bears too: bears, it seems, are animals with a gender: Kether. Sound familiar? long complex history for us humans. The Witches' Qabala has not made me a Something about the bear, more than about Qabalist. There is useful information in it, any other big wild animal, speaks to us. however—information about an allied The Sacred Paw is about bears and people SPRING 1986 37 as much as it is about bears. There are only publication. Its three major divisions, eight kinds of bears in the world, counting “ Philosophy of Asatru,” “ Gods and the panda, which is by blood test more a Myths” and “ Religion and Relevance” bear than anything else. Shepard and represent attempts to recover old material Sanders take us through a naturalist’s guide and to make it relevant but not acquiescent to these bears, their lives and habitat, but to present-day North American culture. An most of the book is devoted to the way Asatru Anthology is shot through with a people conceive of bears. The bear has been vision of Western Civilization oppressed by the “go-between” between humans and totalitarian forces and a morally bankrupt divinity to tribal peoples, while in the Middle Christianity, requiring a new, heroic Ages he was a symbol of the Christian spiritual vision, “ at once joyful and bitter, church. Hunting rituals treated the bear as cosmic and homey, comic and tragic, prince among animals. In literature, the unbelievable and full of truth.” authors note, the bear is both smart and naive, forgiving and vicious. As the “ old man in the fur coat” he resembles us: maybe Herbal Magic when tourists feed the bears at Yellowstone they wish unconsciouslly to be reunited with CUNNINGHAM’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF something lost and treasured. If they read MAGICAL HERBS. By Scott Cunningham. The Sacred Paw they might have an idea St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn what it is.. Publications, 1985. 318 pages, glossary, bibliography, index.$12.95, paperback.

Documenting the Norse Revival Hundreds of plants seen to have powers in and of themselves are listed, with short AN ASTATRU ANTHOLOGY. non-specific paragraphs, e.g. “Use the fruits Breckenridge, Texas: Asatru Free Assembly, of the prickly ash as a perfume to attract 1983. 71 pages. $6, saddle-stitched. (P.O. love.” Herbs are cross-referenced under Box 1754, Breckenridge, Texas 76054). their traditional attributions of planetary influence or magical purpose, as well as with Asatru, also known as Odinism, is a folk and Latin names. There is an extensive revived Norse Pagan religion, one that bibliography and a short list of mail-order “ places a high value on human freedom and suppliers. individuality,” to quote this work’s introduction. Its name is translated as “ faith of the Aesir,” in other words the Norse pantheon including Odin, Thor and other gods and goddesses—but in practice also including the Vanir, an older divine strata that includes Frey and Freya, the Divine Parents. A group of American followers of this tradition came together in 1972 to form an organization now called the Asatru Free Assembly, headed by Stephen McNallen, editor of the AFA’s magazine, The Runestone, and of this anthology of short pieces from The Runestone’s first 10 years of

38 IRON MOUNTAIN IRON MOUNTAIN TWO-YEAR INDEX Rubi, Kathryn. “ Pagan Renaissance and VOLUME ONE 1984-86 Wiccan Witchcraft in Industrial Society: A Study in Parasociology and the Sociology of Reprints of any article may be ordered at the Enchantment.” 1:31-42 ($3.00.) price shown in parentheses. Reprint price includes postage. Levering, Donald. “ Remedy for Drought” (poem). 1:17. ($0.50). Author Index McCarthy, Jim (interview). “ High School Bonewits, P.E.I. “ Designing Effective Magic.” 1:11-14. ($1.25). Rituals.” 3:9-17 ($2.25). McNierney, Michael, and McNierney, Bruchac, Joseph. “The Man who Wanted to Patrick. “ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: bean Owl” (poem). 1:18 ($0.50). Interview with Jose Cuellar.” 2:13-17. ($1.25). Bruchac, Joseph. “ Spinning the Medicine Wheel: The Bear Tribe in the Catskills.” Metzger, Deena. “ Re-Vamping the World: 1:3-9. ($1.75) On the Return of the Holy Prostitute.” 4:5-16 ($2.75). Carson, Phil. “ Carlos Castaneda: A True Shaman After All?” 2:9-12. ($1.00). Rainey, Rich. See Kirkpatrick, George.

Clifton, Chas S. “A Goddess Arrives: The Rubi, Kathryn. See Kirkpatrick, George. Novels of Dion Fortune in the Development of Gardnerian Witchcraft.” 3:29-42 ($3.50). Van Blerkom, Linda. “ When Magic Fails: Rationalization in North American Clifton, Chas S. “Magical Autobiography Shamanism.” 2:25-31. ($1.25). and Its Practitioners.” 2:18-24. ($1.75). Vye, John. “Notes on Ritual Drumming.” Cuellar, Jose (interview). “The Sorcerer’s 1:15-16. ($0.50). Apprentice.” 2:13-17. ($1.25).

Dow, Carl. “Magical Religion Pervades Brazil.” 4:17-30. ($2.75). Books Reviewed Because this review was prepared in Farrar, Janet, and Farrar, Stewart. “ Myth, advance of publication of issue 4, page Ritual and Symbolism.” 1:43-8. ($1.50). numbers for book reviews in this issue are not given. Consult the review section herein Harrow, Judy. “ Small Group Ministry.” for exact references. 3:43-45. ($0.75). Andrews, Lynn V. FLIGHT OF THE Holt, Rochelle Lynn. “The Story of the SEVENTH MOON. 2:18-24. ($1.75). Starets Rasputin” (poem). 3:19-28 ($2.50). Andrews, Lynn V. MEDICINE WOMAN. Kelly, Aidan. “ Inventing Witchcraft: The 2:18-24. ($1.75). Gardnerian Paper Trail. 1:19-29. ($2.50). Anonymous. THAT WHICH IS. 2:36. Kirkpatrick, George; Rainey, Rich; and ($0.50).

SPRING 1986 39 (Australian). Kindred Spirits Quarterly, request—send large self-addressed stamped P.O. Box 101, Bega, New South Wales 2550, envelope (2 oz. postage). Australia. THE RUNESTONE is the official PAGAN/OCCULT/WITCHCRAFT publication of the Asatru Free Assembly, SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP of Mensa is and has promoted the religion, values and an international network of persons culture of the Northern European soul since interested in Nature spirituality, magic, and 1972. A typical issue contains articles of the esoteric lore. It, and its affiliated local ancient way of the Northlands, our gods, groups, sponsor activities as well as goddesses, religious practices, our ancestral publishing a newsletter, PAGANA, values and how they can be lived in the world available to its members only. Non-Mensans today. Subscriptions are $9 ($12 overseas) are welcome as associate (non-voting) for one year. Asatru Free Assembly, P.O. members. PAGANA is $12 for 6 issues. Box 1754, Breckenridge, Texas 76024. Sample issue $2. POW-SIG, P.O. Box 9494, San Jose, Calif. 95157. WILDFIRE is the magazine of the Bear Tribe Medicine Society, replacing Many PANEGYRIA: Pagan newsletter, published Smokes, including stories, articles, news, 8 times annually by the Aquarian Tabernacle and artwork. One year’s subscription (two Church, Inc. Subscriptions $8 per year for double issues) costs $5 ($10 overseas). P.O. surface mail; $12 for domestic airmail; $16 Box 9167, Spokane, Wash. 99209. foreign airmail. Sample copy free on Iron Mountain: A Journal of Magical Religion Artemisia Press P.O. Box 227 Florence, Colorado 81226 CLASS MAIL FIR ST

Address Correction Requested