Chapter Sixteen
I promise you that the same stuff galaxies are made of, you are. The same energy that swings planets around stars makes electrons dance in your heart. It is in you, outside you, you are it. It is beautiful. Trust in this. And you and your life will be grand.
Kamal Ravikant, Live Your Truth
There is one last ritual to perform, the one that finishes our work with the labyrinth and gives us access to the void. If all this has taught us anything, it is that the microcosm mirrors the macrocosm. We house within ourselves the same universe that we live in. We both know this to be true and yet find it paradoxical. As we seek to gain one last bit of gnosis together from the labyrinth, we must proceed with the understanding that we are made of the same stuff that even the Grigori are—that the only thing separating us is vibration, and even that can be mutable under the influence of quintessence.
You have likely made an educated guess by now. The labyrinth gave us the ability to fill in the missing pieces required to activate the Pyramid of Diana. If the elemental forces within the Pyramid of Diana and the Pyramid of Dianus make up the universe, they also make up you. As occupiers of space, observers of time, beings of matter, conductors of energy, and shapers of quintessence, the powers of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit move through us. As witches, we have always had the witch power to help us see and feel this, but now after all this work we truly know it.
What we will seek to do next is something that we are told by the ruling paradigm we cannot do without the help of a priest or religion: reach God. Throughout this entire book we have been persuing little conversations with her, tuning in to her frequency and building gnosis from what is revealed as a result. Now we must go even further and assemble all the pieces that we now have access to. To speak to God Herself, we need to unite the forces of light and dark within ourselves. We must allow their powers to fuse together so that we can create quintessential equilibrium. We must merge the two pyramids and become the Merkaba of Creation.
By becoming the Merkaba of Creation, the powers within ourselves find balance with those outside. We achieve harmony and become the point of origin for all things. There is nothing that separates us from the animals or the wind, nothing that ranks our importance or categorizes our value. The individual becomes the singular all. Only then can we conceive of creator.
Closing Ritual:
Activating the Merkaba of Creation
If you have followed along with the text and have completed each of the other rituals, then you are already prepared for this working. In many ways it is a very natural experience to do this; the energies want to connect. The most challenging part, aside from what I explain here, is that you are on your own. Now more than ever you must rely on your gnosis, your instincts, your witch power. Now more than ever you will be required to figure out what comes next on your own. This final act of ascension puts the responsibility of answers squarely on your shoulders.
Ingress
Lay the compass, summon the witch’s tree, and then open your senses once more and remember that this space has been empowered as a result of your work. Take a deep breath and summon both the Pyramid of Diana and the Pyramid of Dianus. See the two merge into one, and as they do so, see yourself merge with them as well. Continue to breathe slow and deep, and allow this process to happen naturally.
Congress
As you merge with the two pyramids, find yourself looking out from the point of fusion where the two meet. There, from the center, you can feel the powers of all ten Grigori moving through you as well as the distinct frequencies of Diana and Dianus that they too comprise. You can feel the energies of light and dark pulling each other apart and then mending one another. You can feel light become darkness and darkness become light, energy becoming matter and matter becoming energy. You can feel space expand and gravity pull. You see all of time in an instant.
The pyramid of light, spinning clockwise around and through you and fed by your gnosis, brightens as you settle into this awareness. From within the pyramid of darkness that rotates through and around you counterclockwise, you feel waves of energy washing over you. Both pyramids now begin to move faster, pulling you in all directions. Recite the following incantation:
Of light and darkness I am bound, of peace and chaos I am found.
Of the Grigori am I made, and through their power shall I fade.
I am that which can be found within, that which has always been.
I am that which can be found about, that which cures all doubt.
I am the Holy One that does descend, the serpent rising to meet its end.
I am the mind that is the all, I am the spirit that hears the call.
Take a deep breath and feel the power within yourself reach equilibrium with the power that surrounds you. Feel that instead of tension between the light and dark, you have reached a place of union where these energies rise and fall within you in a rhythmic pulse. Be aware of both halves, but also be aware of the sensation that comes from the whole. Breathe slow and deep and reach out through your witch’s dream to find the presence that rises from deep within this union. Follow the pulse of power with your breath, and allow it to guide you as you open yourself up to the presence of God Herself and recite the Star Goddess Prayer:
Holy Mother, in you we live, move, and have our being.
From you all things emerged, and unto you all things return!
See that within the unity of creation a great winged serpent arises from the all, writhing as if it had been plucked from the earth and is separating itself from the emptiness of the void. Watch as the unity becomes this serpent, as its body twists so that its mouth can grasp its tail. Finally, watch as this serpent folds itself into the familiar shape of an ouroboros.
What you do now and what questions you ask are choices that are entirely up to you. I would suggest allowing them to show themselves in whatever form they choose to and asking at least one question: “Who am I?”
As I mentioned, these rituals will leave you forever changed, and that is made real with what happens next.
Egress
Getting to this place is difficult. There has been a lot of work that we needed to do and many lessons we needed to learn. Leaving this place, however, is impossible; you can never leave. You now know things that you can never un-know and have built gnosis that can never be deconstructed. You have acknowledged the Grigori and received their blessing. You are now the priest, the guide, the mentor, the embodiment of their power. You now know God Herself. Leaving that behind simply is not a possibility. It has been written in time and will continue to manifest in every present until the end of time.
You can, however, return to a sense of self and allow what you have learned on this journey to actually change your life. How you do that and what you do as a result of that are, again, entirely up to you. To get back to your place of origin, take five deep breaths and shift your focus from the void and the serpent to the point at the center of the ouroboros where the head and tail now meet. As you change perspective, notice that you lose sight of the void and the serpent but become aware of the flow of endlessness that moves through you, eventually meeting the river of endlessness that flows through all things. Take three deep breaths, becoming aware once again of your individuality, and allow this energy to become part of you as you say:
As without so within, with my breath I draw you in.
As without so within, with my breath I draw you in.
As without so within, with my breath I draw you in.
Open your eyes and find now that from where you stand, the Merkaba of Creation emanates from you and that from this merkaba the witch’s tree and the compass extend. Realize that you are now the apex and vertex of time and space, you are now the center and the circumference; you are sacred. Take a deep breath, and as you exhale, lift your hands up in exultation to the glory of creation and say “So must it be.”
Completion
We are God. There, I said it. That is, in many ways, the entire point of the work related to the Labyrinth of Diana. Sure, it can be heavy to think outside of the box and to expand our definition of both what the universe is and how it works. But to truly appreciate and engage it, we have to learn more about it. You’ve done that and are now ready to keep challenging yourself and make informed decisions about how you exert your own power over the world.
Keep your journal, keep the sketches you made, keep everything! These are excellent reminders of what you have learned and still likely have a lot of information to reveal. The work is never done; we only ever shift perspective and discover new things to learn. These notes will help you to do that the next time life becomes challenging. You have the power; never be afraid to use it.
The truth doesn’t always set you free. Sometimes it saddles you with a burden you can never escape. So choose very carefully where you decide to start digging and what dragons you choose to slay. Prepare to be taken places you never wanted to go. Gnosis isn’t always a flower—sometimes it’s a sword. Maybe more often than not.
Chris Knowles, The Secret Sun
W hen I began writing this series, I made it my goal to explore the witch power in ways that it had not been done before. In doing so, I hoped that those of us who had been around for a while and were looking for a new way of seeing our power and its potential could actually find some renewed value in exploring witchcraft through a different perspective. At the end of the third and final book in this series, I hadn’t expected to feel so changed myself.
The witch power is something that I found immense value in developing. It has been there to guide me through the bad times and has helped me find my way to the good. It is a part of the craft that rarely gets the attention it deserves, even though it is always there, always reaching out, searching for answers. With each book we have peeled back its layers and have eventually found ourselves at the end of our road together, staring off into the distance and wondering what comes next.
With this last book, we wrapped up our study of the witch power (for now) and engaged some of the most complicated topics in modern occultism. We explored the concept of egregores and broke the chains from our pasts that would have otherwise kept us grounded and unaware. We broke wicked vows and remapped our energy bodies. We took back the missing pieces of ourselves as we treaded the mill and sought out ecstatic union in the witch’s dream. We visited the witch’s sabbat and met the Witch Queen and King there, only to meet them again in the Merkaba of Creation. This series started with the study of the witch power as a part of every witch and now concludes with the examination of how everything is connected to the witch power, even God Herself. We now come full circle and find that what we have been looking for truly has been within us the whole time.
Regardless of your background, all of the mysteries that we have explored here can be performed outside the confines of a tradition. These energies do not belong to anyone; if anything, we belong to them. In the end, what matters most won’t be the collection of books and herbs you have amassed or the ritual tools and secret oil recipes you’ve collected. In the end, the only thing that matters is gnosis because gnosis is the only currency for the soul.
In closing, I will leave you with this: the universe is chaotic and contains all of the good and the bad, but it is not itself either. It has no morals or ethics and holds not the ability to be judge or jury; it simply exists. We are all subject to the laws of this universe and are each at the mercy of the same forces. After my own conversations with God, I have grown increasingly aware of the fragility of life and of the powers that protect it. We must be kind to one another. We must live as examples of the change we seek. We must use our powers to help our fellows as well as ourselves. Not everyone has the witch power, and I have no judgment on how those who do use it, but as agents of that power, I believe it is imperative that we use it in a way that makes the world a better place for everyone.
Go in light and darkness. Go in peace.