Yes, no, goodbye? Rosemary Ellen Guiley on Oujia

This week I caught an episode of the Paranormal Podcast, featuring Rosemary Ellen Guiley on the topic of Oujia boards.  The interview coincides with the release of Guiley's new book devoted to the history and lore of the Oujia, or "talking board," as the device is generically known.  She breezes through the Oujia's origins as a Spiritualist-era craze and its current status as a pop-culture icon and mainstay of urban legend.  But host Jim Harold keeps the conversation centered around one question:  Does the board really deserve its bad reputation?

 I've always marvelled at the knee-jerk reaction many people have to the very mention of Oujia--and not just people who are unfamiliar with or fearful of the occult.  I remember one time as a preteen, two friends and I pooled our allowance money to buy a Oujia board at the toy store.  It was the closest my liberal and rational-minded parents ever came to an outright prohibition of anything.  Much later, I became active in a paranormal group, where it was accepted as a truism that any pesky house-ghost manifestation could likely be traced back to a naive person playing with a Oujia board.  And of course I've heard plenty of New Age folks say matter-of-factly that Oujia allows "lower vibrations" to manifest, that it attracts "earthbounds," that it "opens a door" to astral cesspools, etc., etc.

So it's become a matter of course to shun the boards and blame them for all kinds of mayhem, from demonic possession to poltergeist activity to streaks of bad luck.  But why?  Why does Oujia occupy a category apart from other tools people use to access psychic information?  Isn't Oujia, based as it (probably) is on the ideomotor response of the body, basically just a form of dowsing?  How does using the board open a person up to unwholesome spiritual influences any more than say, automatic writing?  Is a paper and ink really more "visible" to predatory entities than a mediumistic individual, sans board?  I'm not denying that some people experience truly disturbing events related to Ouija use.  I just want to understand the mechanics here, and why this device is considered to be so especially dangerous.

Which is why I listed to Guiley's opinion with eager curiosity.  Her controversial position: Oujia gets a bad rap.  The board itself isn't evil, and it isn't fundamentally different than other spirit contact devices.  When asked why Oujia is associated with so much bad juju, she offers some different theories.  (I don't have the recording handy, so I'm going to paraphrase.) There's the prevalence of Oujia-related mischief in horror films, she says, which creates the expectation of fear in users.  Then there's also the ease of access for casually interested folks--people who would never go into a metaphysical shop to buy a dowsing rod can pick up a Parker Bros. board at Target.  And there's the internet, which allows fear-mongering and superstition to propagate out of control.  This interview was a treat.  I haven't totally made up my mind about Oujia yet, and I admire Guiley for having the guts to take an unorthodox stance and consider tough questions without spouting off cliches.  It doesn't stop her from rounding out her book with shocking and scintillating Oujia anecdotes--but hey, those make for good reading.

If you're interested in this topic, I recommend picking up a copy of Oujia Gone Wild, with co-author Rick Fisher.  Guiley's been working on the book for the last couple of years, and it's finally available through her website, visionaryliving.com.  (A digital edition is forthcoming.)  Has she been laying low since her sometime co-author, Philip Imbrogno, got busted for fabricating credentials and sources?  No matter.  It's great to see a new book from Guiley, and on such a perennially fascinating topic.

Legendary scryers: Morgaine from The Mists of Avalon

Viviane opened a little bag she wore about her neck and took out a small quanitity of crushed herbs, which wafted a sweetish-musty scent through the chamber.  She sifted only a few grains into the basin of water before saying in a low, neutral voice, "Look into the water, Morgaine.  Make your mind perfectly still, and tell me what you see."

Morgaine came and knelt before the basin of water, looking intently into its clear surface.  The room was very silent, so still that Viviane could hear the small chirping of some insect outside.  The Morgaine said, in a wandering, unfocused voice, "I see a boat.  It is draped with black and there are four women it it...four queens, for they wear crowns...and one of them is you...or is it me?"

"It is the barge of Avalon," Viviane said, low.  "I know what you see."  (The Mists of Avalon (1984), Marion Zimmer Bradley)

There are few pagans and witches of a certain age who don't recall Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon books with a sense of fondness.  The formula of epic Arthurian fantasy percolated through Berkeley neopaganism made for a delicious cuppa--and for those of us without access to a pagan/occult community, it quelled a mighty craving.  I snuck it out of my mom's book pile as a kid, bookmarked all the witchy and sexy bits, and pored over them until the pages got grubby.  I also devoured the inferior prequels (Lady of Avalon, Priestess of Avalon, etc.), until my small-town library figured out they were basically pagan porn and quit buying them.

For the handful of people who don't know, Mists covers the Camelot saga from the viewpoint of Morgaine (better known as Morgan le Fay), King Arthur's half-sister.  As the story begins, Morgaine is the loner at her father's court, a plain and stubborn girl who Nobody Understands.  (Bradley liked this trope--she later repeated it with Cassandra of Troy in her 1986 novel The Firebrand.)  The best part of the book was when Morgaine's cool Aunt Viviane, who just happens to be the Lady of the Lake, comes to visit Morgaine at her father's castle.  She figures out that Morgaine has the Sight.  (The liberal use of capitals is one of the book's hallmarks.)  Right away, she vows to adopt Morgaine away from her politically preoccupied family.  Morgaine gets to escape the repressive court of Camelot and go live on Avalon in the House of Maidens, where she basically gets naked and does magic all the time.  You might call this part of the book my Adolescent Fantasy, or even a Latent Psychic Baby Dyke's Wet Dream.

Morgaine does most of the scrying in the book, but everyone of the Old Blood (King Arthur's mother's side of the family) has the gift to some degree.  The ladies of Avalon prefer to scry in water, outdoors, in a natural pool not shaped by human hands--though in a pinch, a metal wash-basin does the trick.  (What those magic herbs are, nobody knows.) All the mirror gazing in Mists serves two basic plot functions:  It works like a two-way radio that the Avalon can gals use to communicate across vast distances (well, as vast as they have in England).  It's also a handy foreshadowing device--thanks to their mad scrying skills, Avalon's priestesses get to gloomily prophesy the doom of Camelot and the end of the Old Religion on every third page.

If it sounds like I'm snarking on Mists, I only halfway mean it.  I was re-reading parts of the novel recently (the witchy and the sexy parts, like old times).  And it's held up pretty well over the years.  Sure, the 80's Wiccan feminism is heavy-handed in spots, but to characterize the whole thing retro-camp is unfair.  In my opinion, it's still the best retelling of the Arthur story to date.  The film version (with Julianna Margulies as Morgaine) wasn't half bad, either.

Secret Window Mirrors on Etsy

That is, you don't need fancy tools if you possess the right skills and intent, and buying stuff won't make you successful if you don't.  This is the legacy of the postmodern Chaos Magick movement--which succeeded in shaking off some of the Victorian-era filigree from the Western esoteric tradition, but perhaps took things a step too far.  Yeah, you can make sigils on Post-its if you don't have an virgin parchment laying around.  And you can scry with day-old coffee in a Solo cup if that's all you have.  But it's equally true that magic begins in the imagination, and the imagination loves color, texture, and glamour.  Anyone who's the least bit romantically or artistically inclined will appreciate the boost they get from a beautiful, evocative piece of equipment.

That's why I'd like to endorse Secret Window Mirrors on Etsy.  Creator Michelle Christine offers goth-tastic black scrying mirrors in vintage frames, as well as decorative mirrors--all crafted from salvaged goods.  Her one-of-a-kind dark mirrors look like they belong on a fairy tale wizard's study, or a spinster witch's secret cabinet.  (Prices are very reasonable, too.)  If you're crafty, her work might inspire you to haunt some estate sales for your own scrying mirror, and put a little filigree back into your life.

Scrying with obsidian

Obsidian is a natural volcanic glass.  It is an ancient scrying tool with unique properties and sacred associations that make it a popular choice even today.   The stone, found primarily in North America, is black with a naturally glossy texture.  Large deposits of obsidian were formed when silica-rich lava or magma cooled rapidly, creating an igneous rock.  Obsidian often gets lumped into the crystal category by New Agers, but the stone is technically not crystalline--it's vitreous (or amorphous).  The metaphysical properties attributed to obsidian include grounding, blocking negative energy, spiritual protection, and enhancing psychic vision.  (Isn't every single gemstone credited with clearing negativity and enhancing psychic vision?  Just once, I'd like to walk into a crystal store and have someone say, "Here, check out the energy of this crappite--it shuts down all your chakras at once and gives you warts, besides!") 

Anyway, the largest veins of obsidian are found in North America, where for thousands of years it was used to make tools and ceremonial items.  Obsidian is fairly easy to shape with stone tools, and can be honed to an extremely sharp edge.  The knowledge of metallurgy, so important in the course of European civilization, did not develop in pre-Colombian Mesoamerica, perhaps because of the wide availability of obsidian for knives, axes, and awls.  To the Aztecs, obsidian was a divine stone, thought to be a form of blood originating from deep in the earth.  It was sacred to the god Tezcatlipoca ("Smoking Mirror"), who presided over magic, divination, the night sky, and ancestral memory.  Obsidian also has mythic significance in the Navajo and Maya cultures.  (For more obsidian facts and history, go here.)

Obsidian in its usual form is solid black and polished to a high shine.  But there are variations.  "Gold sheen" or "silver sheen" obsidian has phantom streaks of light-catching inclusions, which are caused by tiny gas bubbles trapped during the cooling process.  "Rainbow" obsidian has a multicolor effect caused in a similar way by trapped water.  There's also "snowflake" obsidian (or "Apache tears") that is sprinkled with grey, ash-like flecks.  (I can't imagine that this kind would be very good for scrying.)  Most obsidian goods come from Mexico.  You can buy obsidian in the usual assortment of shapes, including spheres, cabochons, skulls, pyramids and palmstones, and also in natural chunks which reflect the flow of the lava that formed it.

Among the most prized of scrying tools are black obsidian mirrors.  These are usually unframed round or ovoid slabs about a centimeter thick.  Broad pieces of obsidian that can be crafted into mirrors are rare, and it takes a lot of skill to cut the brittle stone this way.  That translates into serious coin.  I've seen 6-inch obsidian mirrors selling for $300 or more online, while most occult shops offer 12-inch beveled black glass mirrors for between $60 and $100.  If it's important to you to have the natural volcanic glass, you'll almost certainly have to content yourself with a smaller surface.

Now, from reading various internet forums (why, oh why?) I've learned that some people are reluctant to use a black surface for scrying, the same way some people have a fearful reaction to black candles, robes, and other ritual tools.  Of course my esteemed readers already know that there isn't anything evil or sinister about the color black and indeed it has a rich symbolic link to sleep, the powers of the North, the generative darkness of the Goddess, etc.  I think the black mirror's PR problem comes not only from negative associations with the color, but its use in ceremonial magic as a means of evoking spirits, such as in the Solomonic revival led by Carroll "Poke" Runyon.  But just because dark mirrors are useful for evocation work, doesn't mean you can't safely use them for general divinatory purposes, also.  If you're drawn to obsidian, you should use it.  If you're so superstitious and timid that just looking at a black surface gives you the creeps, you should probably just take up needlepoint--it's safer.

 While I'm dishing out the unsolicited advice, I'd also like to say, don't worry if you can't see anything in obsidian, because it really is different from other media.  Just try something else.  (Conversely, you might want to try obsidian if other scrying tools don't do it for you.)  For years, I thought that I couldn't scry a dark surface.  Despite some fleeting success with hematite and blank computer screens, I got much better results with water and later, quartz.  I found I relied on the subtle movements of light inside my specula, and obisidian just looked flat to me.  I also disliked the tendency of black surfaces to suddenly reflect my face back to me when I was trying to get a fix on a vision.  (That's right--my face is just too, too distracting.)

Recently, though, I've branched out and started playing with a small obsidian sphere that I picked up for around $10.  I was at a new (to me) crystal store that had a large display of obsidian at very reasonable prices.  There was another shopper nearby me, a Mexican man, who was in the process of reverently handling each and every stone one by one, sometimes muttering under his breath and holding the stone closer to his head as if waiting for an answer.  I watched him for a little while, then figured well, either he's fuckin' nuts or he knows what he's doing.  What the heck, maybe I'll go find me an obsidian, too.

So I go over to the display (there was plenty of room, and anyway, he didn't notice me) and start picking up rocks.  I didn't talk to them, though.  Eventually there was one I felt particularly drawn to, a ball about an inch and a half in diameter.  I held it up to the light.  And...I saw something!  Some clouds, some mountains.  I was so excited--I'd never seen anything (besides my nose) in an obsidian sphere before.  There was motion and light, a silvery streak with just the slightest warm tinge.  (I couldn't tell if it was silver or gold, so I just called it "sold.")  I took it home and began to work with it right away.  Turns out this was a "sheen" obsidian, which I had never heard of before.  When I turn it back an forth, it has a hypnotic effect that's similar to what I get from the light play in quartz.  I still find that clear depth works best for me, but I enjoy the challenge of trying something different.  I also get out obsidian during the dark moon, when my (very lunar) primary crystal seems to be hibernating.

Well, that's about all I know about scrying with obsidian.  I recommend trying this beautiful stone, especially if you have an affinity for volcanoes, Aztec and Mesoamerican culture, the color black, or the elements of Earth and Fire.  If you have any ideas or experiences that relate to the magical use of obsidian, please share them in the comments section--I'd love to learn more.

Related links on my blog:

Read about some basic scrying techniques.
Don't like black? Shop for a crystal instead.
See pictures of the most notorious obsidian mirror ever.

Legendary scryers: The Page of Cups

And now for something completely different.  Our legendary scryer for today isn't a historical figure or a fictional character, but instead a Tarot court card, the Page of Cups.

Also known as the Princess of Cups in some decks, this card usually depicts a dreamy youth holding a cup or chalice.  In the classic Waite-Smith and derivative decks, a fish is popping up to the surface, symbolizing the deep unconscious.  When taken as a significator, this card stands for a young, intuitive person of any gender (and often an androgyne). The Page of Cups is creative and sensitive, but not always emotionally mature.  When reversed or ill-aspected, it can indicate someone who is flaky, withdrawn, impractical, or subject to mood disorders or substance dependence. Astrologically, it corresponds to the water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces).  Besides representing a person, the appearance of this Page in a reading can signify the beginning of a creative undertaking or psychic exploration.

So why do I call the Page of Cups the scryer of the deck?  Well, for one thing, she bears a cup of water, a perennially popular scrying tool.  The Queen of Cups is also traditionally a card of clairvoyance--but she, being ruled by Scorpio, possesses a more forceful psychic/sexual energy than the Page, who is gently receptive.  The obedient and and humble Page is, I believe, a closer expression of the process of scrying.  When we seek visions, we adopt a passive mental state and accept information as it comes.

Another reason is her sub-elemental attribution.  Each of the court cards has a sub-elemental correspondence which bridges two of the elements--the Page of Cups is Earth of Water.  The Page stands with her feet on the ground, but her eyes are cast into the cup.  In this context, Water represents the world of visions, and Earth represents the world of manifestation.  The scryer uses physical tools to access an intuitive reality.  To extend the metaphor, when we scry, we cast a line out for the things swimming around in our unconscious, and allow them to be beached on the shores of our Earth senses.  We see the creature of the deep manifesting before our eyes, seeming to have a life of its own--just like the fish in the cup.

Finally, there's the symbolism of the cup itself.  The chalice of water is, among other things, an eloquent expression of the Hermetic concept of the Universal Mind.  The water in the cup is linked to every drop of water on the planet via the oceans and individual mind is a reflection of the One Mind, and contains infinite multitudes. If we can look past the cup (the ego that contains our being), we can link up with the ocean (Being with a capital B).  This allows us to see things that are distant from our own experience, narrowly defined.  Many have argued that this connection with the Universal Mind is the source of all psychic experiences, and I certainly don't have a better theory!

So, if you work with Tarot, as I do, you could try using the archetype of the Page of Cups to enhance your practice.  Try meditating on the card to learn about the nature of seership.  Place him on your table or altar when you scry, or store him with your bowl or crystal.  If you reach a place where you're stuck and feel like you're not making progress, you could do a reading, placing the Page in the center as your significator, to find out what will help you move forward.

The Page of Cups pictured above is from the Morgan Greer deck.

In, at, or through? Where to look when scrying

From watching movies and television, it's easy to get the idea that crystal balls and whatnot work pretty much like the TV itself.  You just tune it to the right channel, and then watch the pictures progress across the screen--clear, continuous, and illuminated by an LCD haze.  While this may describe some people's experience of scrying, it's certainly not the most common experience.  And this expectation can be a real stumbling block, especially for beginners who feel like they're doing it wrong because they're not getting 50 channels in HD video.

It's pretty obvious, but it's probably worth mentioning anyway--when you see something "in" your scrying medium, the picture is actually in your mind.  If you were to photograph the image, it wouldn't show up.  If someone was looking over your shoulder, they wouldn't see the same vision.  (Unless you were telepathically linked, or under the influence of the same entity...but that's another discussion.)  Basically, the vision is an induced hallucination that you are choosing to locate in or around the speculum for your convenience.

I recently heard author Geoffrey James express this concept very aptly while a guest on the podcast Thelema Now!  The show's host, Frater Puck, asked James for advice for listeners who had trouble scrying, and he gave this response:

Well, the main thing about scrying is that you have to plug the crystal ball into a USB port, or it doesn't work.  (Laughter.)  The problem that is involved there, when people say that they can't scry, or they say that it doesn't work for them is that they're expecting it to look like a television show.  They're expecting it to look like the movie where someone looks into a crystal stone, and then inside you see, like, teeny people doing things.  That's all convention, in terms of being able to show something like that.  And by the way, that's not new.  At one point, during Dee's work, they decided to use one of his sons, Arthur Dee, as a scryer--he was maybe eight or nine at the time.  And he looked into the stone and all he described some things: "Oh, it looks like there's these little round things coming at me," and eventually Dee looked at it, and there was just some little bubbles in the crystal that he was seeing.  So he was making the same mistake.  But the truth is that the visions occur in your mind, in your imagination--they don't occur as a physical thing that you see inside of the stone.  They actually might, if you were a schizophrenic. You might actually see things, because schizophrenic people literally see things. It's probably an occasion for worry if you actually saw little creatures inside the stone, you know, it's probably time to go get some meds because you're probably not too healthy if that's what's going on.  You have to think of it as more akin to a very focused sort of meditation rather than something that's going to be like the magic out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  That's just not how it is.  It'd be cool if it were, but it just doesn't work that way.  

On the other hand, some people are gonna say, "Well, it's only in your head."  What do you mean, only?  (Laughter.)  Hey what do you mean by that?  "Only"?  Everything's only in your head. Everythng that you perceive about the world, everything--it's all coming through your eyes and ears and through your brain.   So, "only"?  That's all you've got anyway! 

(Geoffrey James on Thelema Now! September 15, 2009.)

 Instructional books and articles offer many tips on how to approach the scrying mirror, crystal, or bowl.  They attempt to explain the technique to eyes used to watching screens:  "Look into it, not at it," or "gaze through it, like a window," or (my personal favorite), "look at it without seeing it."  All those diverse prepositions serve to highlight two essential facts about seership: It's hard to describe with words, and it's likely a little different for everyone.

Here's a list of some of the phenomena the scryer may experience:

• Clouds, mists, or lights which have no definite form, but may evoke thoughts and emotions.
• Flat, screen-like images of varying clarity projected onto the surface of the speculum.
• Events and objects in miniature, enclosed within the boundaries of the medium. (Like a snow globe.)
• Images that appear at a slight distance, as through a window.
• Images inside the speculum, but with portions of the vision extending out towards the seer in three dimensions.
• Visions which appear outside the speculum and seem to be in the room with the seer.
• Images seen in the mind's eye, while the open eyes are fixed on a point.
• Images seen behind closed eyes. 
• Reflections of actual objects on the surface of the speculum, which shift to form other sights.
• Non-visual information: sounds, words, emotions, physical sensations.
• Intuitions which occur directly to the seer, without sensory input.
• Visions which transport the scryer's consciousness to another place, not centered on the speculum.

And any combination of the above may occur in a single session!

What this means is that there are countless valid ways to receive information while scrying.  One is not necessarily better than another, and you can focus your eyes anywhere you damn well please, as long as the method allows you to be comfortable and undistracted.  It doesn't matter if your tools don't work like Jafar's--they will work if you are patient enough to find a good technique and flexible enough to accept the different modes of vision that may come to you.

Good luck!

M

Damon Albarn's Dr. Dee a dissapointment

This article concerns the music from the opera Dr. Dee, which debuted in Manchester, England in July 2011 to generally good reviews.  I just got my earbuds on the cast album (not the "soundtrack," as musical geeks are quick to point out) and had a few thoughts:

 I've been looking forward to hearing this since 2010, when Damon Albarn (frontman for Blur and Gorillaz) and Alan Moore (mad wizard comic writer) announced they were working on an opera based on the life of John Dee (Elizabethan mathemetician and mage).  As an admirer of all three men's work--as well as opera, musical theater, and Renaissance music--I thought the project sounded like a slam dunk, an irresistible confection that must have been dreamed up in a laboratory by evil pop scientists tuned into my every cultural craving.  Moore was to write the libretto, and Albarn to compose the music.  But the collaboration was fraught from the beginning, with the famously agreeable Moore bailing halfway through after Albarn reportedly flaked on some art he was going to do for Moore's zine Dodgem Logic.

Now, I didn't get a chance to see the stage show--from pictures I've seen, the production design looks amazing. Neither have I read Moore's unfinished libretto (which he rather snarkily published in the occult journal Strange Attractor).  But it appears from the music, and from reviews I've read, that Dr. Dee is a little short on story.  There's not enough exposition here to help along anyone who isn't already familiar with Dee and the angelic magic he undertook with scryer Edward Kelley.  And there isn't enough depth of content to sate the occultist segment of the audience, who would certainly prefer to see the pair's magic treated more thoroughly.  Dee himself is notably absent from the album: The title character doesn't sing at all, and has only a few spoken lines in the play.  Kelley is more of a presence.  (He's played by Christopher Robson, whose haunting countertenor is one redeeming quality of the album.)  Unfortunately, instead of characters, we get tropes:  Dee is a Faustian figure, teetering on the edge of damnation as a result of his hubristic curiosity.  Mrs. Dee is a dutiful wife who is torn by split loyalties.  And Kelley is your typical semi-reluctant medium (too long a mainstay of network TV dramas), alternately exhilarated and tormented by forces he can't fully grasp.  (At least he sounds tormented--it's hard to make out all the lyrics.)

Equally head-scratching is Albarn's decision to sing many of the numbers from a narrative perch, rather than giving them to the cast.  His nasally croon, so perfect for the disaffected millennial groove of Blur and the Gorillaz, is jarring and anachronistic when inserted into an opera populated by traditional operatic voices.  The contrast is original, but it doesn't exactly work.

All of these shortcomings might be forgiven if the music was better.  The production's biggest problem is the lack of standout songs.  Albarn's acoustic numbers such as "Apple Carts" and "A Marvelous Dream" are nice enough balladry, but don't showcase the cast members or truly serve the story.  A high point might be "The Moon Exalted," but it's a slow and nebulous ensemble piece--not exactly a toe-tapping show-stopper.  Too many of the other tracks are tuneless and tepid filler.  Stuck in a rut of moody set-pieces, Dr. Dee fails to plumb the depths and scale the heights of both traditional opera and the Enochian magical working on which the story is based.

In short, based on the impressive pedigree of this album, I wanted to like it better.  I can only hope that the mediocrity of Dr. Dee doesn't discourage other artists' attempts at interpreting the lives of Dee and Kelley--it would be amazing to see a competently produced biography on stage or screen one day.  In the meantime, however, I'll be getting my wizardry fix from yet another community theater production of The Tempest before I reach for this album again.