CHAPTER 4
QUENCHING THE FIRES OF HELL:
THE RITE OF THE SEVEN JARS
I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am.
–arthur rimbaud, a season in hell
One of the most important aspects of the Faery Tradition, in my opinion, is the idea that evil is something that can be healed.
Instead of throwing people away in some sort of moralistic trash heap, we operate under the fundamental principle that even those who commit evil are deserving of compassion and, in most cases, can potentially be “redeemed.” Not just in the eyes of a mythical Creator God (or Goddess), but in the eyes of their own daemon—their own God Soul.
In our capacity as “Faery Doctors” we are sometimes asked to provide magic and spiritual assistance to those who do not do magic for themselves, often from religions with values that may be in conflict with our own. In her book Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition, Grandmaster Cora Anderson recalls a story in which Victor was administering the Kala rite 33 to someone, presumably a non-Witch who was seeking help. This person had seen or committed atrocities during the Vietnam war and was haunted by what he experienced there as a young soldier in an impossible and nightmarish situation. They felt as if they were broken, unlovable, even evil, like they didn’t deserve happiness or forgiveness. Victor told this person that God had forgiven them a long time ago, but now they must forgive themselves in a way that included their God Soul (their holy daemon). Victor charged the water, took a sip, and gave the rest to them to drink. When they did, they received a slight electric shock34 and were paralyzed for several minutes before returning to normal. After that, they were at peace.
Some might have seen the actions taken by the ex-soldier to have been “evil” and then perhaps decided to not help them find the peace that they sought; thinking that to deny them such equates to some sort of justice. But this type of thinking does nothing to actually help the world. It might feel good for our ego in the short term to lash out at someone who has been hurtful to ourselves or others. But in the end such actions and emotions merely bind us further to them, and rob us of the golden opportunity to practice fierce compassion.
I personally have ministered to many individuals from various faiths and have been asked several times by many of these people if I believed that certain of their actions were “against God” and would damn them to hell. Here I know to tread carefully, as I do not wish to appear to be usurping their religious systems and values and inserting my own, while at the same time needing to provide a balanced view that alleviates their stress and fear.
“Hell is something we make for ourselves on earth,” I often tell them. “It is the absence of God Herself. And if you are honestly pursuing your highest ideal, then you are already on the path to God.”
Hell. It’s not something that many Neopagans like to talk about. Considering that most of us at one time or another have been told in no uncertain terms by some pious monotheist that we are going to spend eternity there, it is usually not high on the list of topics to which we as a group devote our attention. It’s a piece of Christian mythos, used as a tool of fear and oppression against the masses to ensure blind obedience. And it’s a total downer. Pain. Suffering. Torment. For all of eternity. It seems like such a waste.
The Devil is at least a little more interesting. We can see him in our Horned God, primal and lusty and full of sensual pleasures, the likes of which would easily scandalize the sexually repressed Christian. But a lord of absolute evil? Not exactly plausible.
We might not believe in these things as a point of any particular religion, philosophy, or dogma. But a lot of people do. And belief is a type of devotion. And devotion brings … energy … movement … changes … powers … spirits. Witches know the power of focused belief. We know how to mold and shape it into something that can help us reach our goals. We know how the human mind can create magic.
In this case, a spirit. An egregore, or “thought-form,” to be exact, a type of artificially created entity or energetic form that is given its astral existence by the belief, will, and life force of an individual or group.
Usually this is done with concentrated effort, often with ritual focus, but also these forms can be created by the will of those who are unusually strong or through the communal belief of a group. Even if we hold fast to the indefensible prejudice that somehow our pantheons are real while insisting that their God somehow isn’t, with all this in mind, is it so far off to assume that by the collective belief of so many in a largely Christian dominated society that hell itself would exist in this manner as well?
Whether or not we personally believe in the infernal dimension, we must accept that there are many more who have lived and died by the belief, and for those who have passed on believing that for whatever reason they were going to hell, it is the power of their own belief that ultimately condemns them. This is another example of what can cause a spirit to be restless.
We might say that both heaven and hell are of our own making. They are states of mind in which have shaped the lives of many generations of believers and non-believers alike. Someone who lives their life under an oppressive religious system that teaches them to fear and distrust themselves is very likely to be psychologically and spiritually wounded. By being raised in such a toxic environment these wounds will have been impressed deeply onto the fetch, where they will remain to be a problem for the individual until they are able to face their fear and shame and steal their power back from it.
But what happens if someone does not face their fear? What if there is no moment in which the truth is faced? If one lives their whole life under the damaging lies of the false god,35 and dies believing that they are damned … what then? What of those who committed suicide even though they believed it was an unforgivable sin? What about LGBT people who knew the truth of who they were, but also believed the lie that they were morally inferior because of it? What of anyone who failed to live up to the standards of a Church whose main interest has historically been the accumulation of wealth over the spiritual lives of its parishioners.
In the Faery Tradition, we identify with deity. Since we are all children of the Goddess we especially identify with the Blue God, the firstborn of the Star Goddess who is also her consort and other half. In his aspect as Melek Ta’us, the Peacock Angel of Middle Eastern myth, he is said to be related (or in some cases equated) to Lucifer, that Promethean light-bringer who in modern times has been erroneously conflated with the Christian prince of darkness, but who is rightfully the rebellious spark of individuality and divine freewill within us all. The Blue God, Melek Ta’us, is said to rule over humankind as the holy daemon of the world.
To some this might seem paradoxical; how can our collective higher nature be the same being described as the prince of evil? Further insight may be derived by looking deeper into another piece of Faery lore which states that while underneath the hand of the Goddess he is beneficial and loving, but removed from Her influence he is wrathful and terrible. In this we can see the touch of a patriarchal culture; when the Goddess is removed from the picture, then our lord becomes the jealous and wrathful god that is mentioned in the Biblical texts.
In one myth, it is said that he was cast out of heaven for the sin of pride, which is a story with which most are more familiar in its Christian form as the famous “fall from grace,” giving us the concept of the “fallen angels.” After the Fall, Melek Ta’us was said to repent for his sins, weeping for over seven thousand years and filling seven jars with his tears, which he then used to extinguish the fires of hell, thus establishing him as a savior figure.
This is also a myth about free will. In older versions of this myth cycle, Lucifer (along with all the angels) is ordered by God to never bow before anyone or anything, save for God himself. It is only later, after God creates Adam, that they are asked to bow before God’s humanly creation. As the rest of the angels dutifully bow before the first human, it is Lucifer (Melek Ta’us) alone who refuses (“I am made from light and he from dirt! I will not bow before him!”), thus establishing Melek Ta’us as a figure with a will of his own, a characteristic associated in Islamic tradition with the djinn, as opposed to angels who have no choice but to obey the will of God. It is the establishment of free will that makes our beloved Melek an important—and accessible—figure for us. He contains multitudes; he is the first emanation of God Herself, and thus represents God on the earthly plane. His image is the peacock; a heavenly bird that is linked mythologically to earthly serpents, as it was believed that they got their radiant iridescent colors from a snake’s venom, to which they were believed to be impervious. He is the unified Divine Twins, the serpent of primal, earthly powers melded with the dove (or other bird) of transcendent spirit.
That he embodies both good and evil, spirit and matter, and beauty and darkness makes it easier to identify with him; he has the same potentials and limitations that we all do. He is inextricably linked to us; as we evolve, so does he.
Having firmly established Melek Ta’us as a savior deity, we can turn to him in that capacity in order to heal our own pain and suffering; to “save” us from our own undoing. We all have secret pain. We might not be aware of it (though we often are), but aware or not, it is there. It is that part of us that secretly believes that we are not good enough … not worthy. It is the presence of our inner demons that perhaps were originally invoked in order to protect us from further pain, but now—with a life and will of their own—have begun to dictate to us the boundaries of our existence, constricting us and preventing our fullest potential.
Often, we judge ourselves harshly for having these feelings, which simply compounds their negative impact upon us. We tell ourselves that if we were truly spiritual, enlightened, etc., then we wouldn’t feel powerless, shameful, or desperate. We often respond by attacking ourselves for our weakness, and when this happens we are very likely to attack others in the same way.
In another myth of Melek Ta’us—attributed to the Yazidi36—a poor shepherd awakens one day to find a wounded peacock lying on the ground outside his home. Seeing that the bird was very close to death, the farmer decides—at great burden to himself—to forgo his daily chores and instead care for the wounded creature. All night the shepherd devotedly attends to the sickly bird, feeding it and giving it water … giving it his bed to sleep in and warming it by the fire. The next day the shepherd awakes to find the peacock restored to full health and is shocked to hear the bird speak:
“Noble shepherd! Thank you for mending my wounds and restoring my spirit! For I am the spirit of evil and shall reward you and your family for your kindness.”
With that the peacock placed a blessing upon the shepherd and his family and with a cry, flew up into the heavens.
_____
This myth centers around deep compassion, not just for the sickly or those less fortunate but even for evil itself. If we accept the definition of “evil” as “life force that has been twisted” then we are perhaps less likely to delve into the realm of moralistic absolutes that plague much of monotheistic thinking. When we see evil as something that can be healed, then we perhaps are in a better position to do that healing; to open our hearts in compassion for our own weakness and that of others, instead of reproaching it. We are being called to do what is perhaps the most difficult thing ever: we are asked to have compassion for all parts of ourselves, which includes the weakness, the sickness, and the pain.
“We do not coddle weakness,” the familiar Faery tenet begins, “nor do we condemn it in others.”
Our beloved Peacock Lord wants us to be happy. He wants us to share in his universal dance of ecstasy and desire, and we can only truly do so when we have healed our guilt, shame, and inhibitions. Once healed, we can begin the work of helping to heal others as well.
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
—winston s. churchill
RITE: The Rite of the Seven Jars
This ritual was inspired by the trance experiences of my husband Chas, from which he created a meditative exercise.37 I have taken his idea and expanded it into a ritual that can be used by an individual or a group. This ritual develops on our previous work with helping souls cross over, but now involves the savior figure, Melek Ta’us, as a magical catalyst. This rite is considered to be somewhat “heavy.” You will want to engage in some self-care activities afterward, such as the Waters of Purity rite, as well as getting rest and eating healthy food. This ritual should be done sparingly. Perhaps even as a once- or twice-yearly observance, if even that. Follow your intuition. When in doubt, refer to your divinatory tools.
Items needed:
A black scrying mirror
A few peacock eye feathers in a small vase
A skull or image of a skull (preferably human)
Seven small jars
A chalice (each participant should have their own)
A small pitcher of water
Anointing or blessing oil
A black candle
A blue candle
A red candle
A violet candle
A bell
In the center of your working area, prepare an altar to the Blue God on which are placed the candles, the seven jars, the water pitcher, and the vase of peacock feathers. In the western edge of the circle place the skull.
Open the Way. Create a ritual space (such as casting a circle). Perform the Waters of Purity rite.
Invoke the spirit of the serpent by lighting the red candle, saying:
Earthly serpent,
Coiled deep and down below,
With scarlet flame rise to us
And fill us with Passion and Power!
On the last line, imagine those points of the Iron Pentacle mentioned in the charm being activated in your body, the connecting lines between the two, glowing clear and strong.
Invoke the spirit of the dove by lighting the blue candle, saying:
Celestial dove,
Stretched across the heavens,
With blue flame descend to us
And fill us with Pride and Self!
Again, imagine those Iron points and the pathways between them glowing bright.
Taking both the red and blue candles, use their flames to light the violet, thus bringing the powers of the Twins together:
Winged Serpent! Melek Ta’us!
Firstborn rainbow light of God
Spread amongst the earth and heavens
And merge with us in the name of Sex!
Allow the energy of all the activated points of the Iron Pentacle to flow upward and into the point of Sex, which shines with a crystalline rainbow flame.
Allow your energy body to open up as you would open to a lover. Tender. Passionate. Erotic. Imagine his rainbow light shining deep within you … charging you with the power and purpose to face your true self.
When you feel sufficiently charged, look into the scrying mirror so that you can see your own reflection. Allow yourself to remain open and calm … Look deep into your life and your power. Be aware of any insights that may arise.
Make a prayer that he assist you in discovering and facing your own hidden shame:
Peacock Angel! Peacock Lord!
Shining light into the dark
Descend you now the rainbow flame,
Revealing here our secret shame,
Into hell you now embark!
Allow his rainbow light to flow down deep into those areas which are buried and dark. Allow this light to illuminate an area of your life that you have kept buried—that which you do not want to think about. Allow yourself to recall something in your life that you feel has brought you guilt or shame. It can be something you did to someone else, something that happened to you, perhaps recently, or in childhood, etc. If it becomes too uncomfortable, just relax and remember your soul alignment.
Imagine that these feelings are part of a secret, toxic fire that has been silently burning within you. Feel how this fire is like a small sphere of toxic flame that burns somewhere in your fetch beneath your navel. Feel how it calls into itself every bit of your own power that has been turned against you: every feeling of unworthiness, of shame, guilt … each time you have felt powerless … scared … alone … and especially those feelings that you have kept to yourself … perhaps fantasies of hurting someone … of hurting yourself … of coercing someone, or otherwise subjugating their will. No matter what it is … even if you do not understand what it is … allow yourself to feel it … to face it … and allow its power to burn in that sphere of toxic flame within you. This is the presence of your own personal hell.
Hold those emotions within you and allow them to shine. Emotions are nothing more than energy running through your psyche, so let that energy build and shine. See how it is actually power, and though it has up until now been turned against you, you can control it, tame it, transform it. When you feel the energy is at its peak, breathe three times into your hellsphere, allowing this power to be sealed into it.
Feel how Melek Ta’us feels your pain; how he feels the pain of all who suffer. Imagine him larger than life standing before you, his radiant light filling the room, the sky, the world. Imagine (and feel) that he begins to weep, his etheric tears raining down upon you. Recite the Prayer of the Tears:
You shed your tears to end our suffering,
Into seven jars they flow
Washing clean our pain and sorrow
Quench the fires down below.
Focusing on this etheric rain, slowly pour some water into each of the seven jars, feeling how they not only represent Melek’s tears, but that they are his tears. See his rainbow light descend into each of the jars and from them into your chakras.
See the power of red flowing through the first jar and into your base chakra. Feel how it is filled with vitality, potential, and life force. Feel your fetch. Chant or tone power into the jar and the chakra. Continue chanting or toning for each.
Still in the realm of the fetch, feel orange flowing through the next jar and into your second chakra, which glows with unbridled creativity and pleasure.
Now, feel how your fetch merges into your talker at about your solar plexus where you see yellow shine through the third jar and into your solar plexus chakra, filling it with the qualities of confidence and power.
In your talker, green shines through the fourth jar and into your heart center, filling it with connection, community, and love.
The vibration of the talker is elevated as you ascend up into your fifth chakra in your throat. Blue shines through the fifth jar and into your chakra, filling it with the qualities of communication.
Talker merges with the holy daemon (God Soul) in your sixth chakra—your “Third Eye.” Violet light shines through the sixth jar and into the chakra, filling it with intellect, vision, and dreams.
Feeling the presence of your daemon at your crown, white crystalline light shines though you and into the seventh jar, filling it with understanding, knowing, and divine inspiration.
Anoint yourself on your chakra areas with the water from each of the corresponding seven jars, feeling how the tears of Melek Ta’us are cleansing and soothing you, like a healing salve for your soul. Feel how you are being healed.
All of these power centers in your body are alive and active. Feel and see the light of each of them shine outward into your chalice, which now shines with multicolored, crystalline rainbow light.
Chant whatever sounds you are inspired to make and see how your chalice explodes with a torrent of rainbow-pearlescent liquid energy in which Melek Ta’us now appears as a pure white peacock. Drink deep from your cup and feel how this charged water—his etheric tears—are filling, empowering, and healing you. As you drink, feel how he flies above you into the heavens, weeping his healing tears down upon you, flowing down into that space within you that has burned with the toxic fire. Hear the fires sizzle as the tears begin to douse the flame. Feel these fires being quenched and soothed until there is only wet ash and soot.
Call Melek Ta’us down into you. Feel him descend from the heavens and flow down through your crown and into your body, moving erotically through you as he scrubs and brushes you clean, finally exiting through your perineum with a flow of erotic energy. Notice how he takes on the drab colors of all that toxic muck. He lies on the ground before you, wet … drab and dirty … next to lifeless …
Feel how you have been cleansed and empowered. Feeling yourself shine with rainbow light, open your heart to him and to the dark powers that he now holds within. Open yourself to compassion … feel compassion not just for the God … but for his weakness; your weakness. Feel compassion for sin, wrongdoing, and even evil—not as a justification for it, but as a means to move beyond judgment and therefore become free of it. Let this compassion shine from your heart and into the Peacock Angel.
When he has taken all of it in, he slowly rises, turns, and then beats his tail feathers upon the ground three times—filling all seven heavens with thunder! As you ring the bell three times, he transforms himself into a radiant peacock of many colors, filling your body with his rainbow luminescence once more. Bask in this presence for a while.
Facing the skull, open the Western Gate in whatever manner you are accustomed to and perform the Journey through the Western Gate exercise. You stand on this side of a riverbank amongst those souls who have not yet passed on and into the next phase of life after this one.
Now your journey truly begins. Allow Melek to guide you to a place in the ground where you find an opening. Notice what it looks (and feels) like, and taking a deep breath of power, descend down into the underworld. Down into a cavernous place … down … down … cool at first, the air now begins to heat up the farther you descend. You finally emerge into a place of fire and light … of torment and of pain. This is the transpersonal dimension of hell, and you are able to perceive souls here who are trapped and who believe that they deserve to be here.
After you have taken in as much detail as you can stand, allow Melek’s presence within you to shine outward through you. You may experience great sadness at the suffering of so many. So be it. Allow it to inspire great compassion that moves out in waves from you. If you begin to weep, so much the better … allow your tears to be those of Melek Ta’us, and see his ethereal tears splash down upon the fiery ground, quenching those flames here as they did within you. Hear the flames sizzle and sputter as they are extinguished. You may wish to chant the Prayer of the Tears as you do this.
Feel how Melek’s tears are so awesome that they actually begin a torrent of etheric water that soaks this place, completely dousing the flames leaving, once more, the ash and soot of pain and suffering. Feel how those suffering here are being soothed and freed; the light of consciousness being fed to them so that they become aware of their state—and of their power.
Once more Melek shines with a pearlescent flame and he moves outward and into this place, taking all the suffering and muck into himself, once more becoming drab and dirty. Again, shine compassion into him … and with three beats of his tail feathers upon the ground (and three rings of the bell), he again transforms his appearance and is radiant and beautiful once more. With a lively shriek, he rises up out of this place.
With your will, you reach out to those souls here and invite them to follow him up … imagine a crystalline stairway emerge that spirals up through the opening into which you came into this infernal place. Chanting or singing if you wish, begin to ascend, being aware of those who chose to follow you. Rise up and back into the place of the river where you assist them to cross into the next phase of existence by projecting the mental image of a bridge that crosses the river. (Remember not to force anyone to follow or to cross the bridge. We can only show them the way, but the path is their own.)
When you are ready, return to the realm of the living and close the Western Gate. Anoint yourself with the oil with a blessing. Give thanks to Melek Ta’us … to the Dove … to the Serpent. Give thanks to the Star Goddess and open your circle.
Drink some water. Have a bit of chocolate. Eat real food. Take a bath. Take a nap. Lighten up. Change your vibe. Enjoy it while you can.
The hard work is still ahead.
33. This is the more traditional Hawaiian name for a simple purification ritual that in BlueRose is called “the Waters of Purity.” See Appendix I.
34. This is a common detail often reported by those around Victor when he would perform this rite for others. This is explained as the charge of the water dramatically interacting with the energy body of the recipient. In my own work performing this rite for others I have not experienced such a dramatic charge, but have seen distinct and undeniable benefits of the workings nonetheless.
35. Victor often referred to the “false god” not as a blanket reference for the god of Christianity, but for any supposed monotheistic deity that would deny the existence of any others while also denying the basic decency and sovereignty of the human being, i.e., the “angry, jealous god” who would deny us our own divinity. I am using this term in this same fashion.
36. It is my belief that this is not an authentic Yazidi myth, but is instead attributed to them by Islamic dogmatists in an effort to “prove” that the Yazidi are “devil worshipers,” which is a false accusation. Nevertheless, the symbolic message of the myth stands on its own merits and serves to illustrate an important spiritual truth.
37. See Chas Bogan, “Our Faith Has No Hell,” Witch Eye #10, http://feritradition.org/grimoire/deities/essay_no_hell.html