Here’s an excerpt from the latest of Jason Miller’s Magick Monday Newsletters – ENJOY!
I gave a talk a few months ago at the Hekate Symposium by Sorita D’este called “Making Research and Reveralation Rhyme”. The talk focused on how I hold both spirit revelation (I hate UPG as a term) and academic research in high regard. I keep them separate, yet let them each inform my work. In the talk I gave a numer of examples of Revelation and Research “rhyming”, instances where a spirit told me something that I could then research and find either direct confirmation for, or at least enough synchronicity to consider it important. You can read more about my approach in these two articles:
Respecting Research and Revelation
WHOLE MAGIC PART 2: RESEARCH VS REVELATION
But what do you do when revelation and research contradict one another, or at least seem not to be in any kind of accord?
The most common example in the Hekatean world is probably the symbol that graces this post, the so-called “Wheel of Hekate” that gets presented as an ancient symbol of Hekate. While, it does make a bitchin fidget spinner, historically it has nothing to do with Hekate. As Sorita D’este notes in the article I linked to, the providence of this symbols connection to Hekate is only as ancient as the 1980’s. As near as I can tell someone saw the symbol at the Archaelogical Museum of Argos, where it is engraved on a stone that has nothing to do with Hekate, and thought it looked a bit like descriptions of the Hekate’s Strophalos. That said, the symbol has caught on mightily. Is it mis-attribution or the will of the Gods?
Another vexing non-rhyme that “heka” is a word for magic in Egyptian, and Hekate is a goddess closely associated with magic. This makes you want there to be a connection. I mean, it just makes sense right? Sadly, no matter how much we want there to be a connection – there does not seem to be one. Sigh….
In a different era, Kenneth Grant would have just pronounced the connection with such matter-of-fact confidence that you would think every linguist in the world was in agreed. That era is over, and I for one am thankful for it. Now we can say “if there is a connection, academics have found zero evidence for it” and leave it at that. If you think spirits, being suble beings and all, work in subtle ways that academics can’t always nail down – cool. If not, cool. These are the facts, make up your own mind.
In the Sorcery of Hekate Course I teach, the name Zyrinthia comes up in relation to serpents at a certain point in the class. This is because of a vision I had of a Hekate ceremont at the cave of Zyrinthia, and a cicumambulating Serpent that passed through all the practitioners and then out into the world. It is an important epitaph for the work we do.
So I researched the cave and the cults that practiced there but there was nothing to note a special connection with Serpents.
So I dropped the name from the calls it was in, figuring I got something wrong. I received push back. “No. It must be in there” said the spirits. This event is key to the work.
How do I respect revelation? I keep it in there.
How do I respect research? I make sure everyone knows the facts or lack thereof. When Patrick Dunn questioned me on the name, I told him flat out “yeah, there is no historical connection that I could find and honestly I doubt that there is any. For whatever reason though the name is important in this Arcana for controling the Serpecnt Spirits so we roll with it”.
This week, I was made aware of a book called “Return of the Serpents of Wisdom” that mentions Zyrinthia as a place where Amazons depicted Hecate, as snake-footed, snake-haired and generally serpentine. It’s a cool coincidence to see in a book. It’s tempting to take this as a sort of confirmation, and I would if the information in the book or the author were reliable in any way, but thats not the case. The Author goes on about Atlantis like its a matter of historical record, and has in the past presented at least one “interview” with a living author, that apparently only happened in spirit, bevcause the author in question has no memory of it
So why am I writing this post? Because I value spirit communications. I value it so much, I even developed a post-gnosis checklist to help evaluate such communications. I have had spirits deliver useful, verifiable, and actionable information in the past. Its one of the main things I love about magic. It is indespensible.
Sadly I have also seen people insist that ancestors they only dreamed of be included in the official record of their family tree. I have seen demonstrably false information get presented as established fact. I have seen unethical and even criminal actions get defended with “The goddess told me to do it, what would you have me do?”
Tell, her to piss off. Thats what I would have you do.
Be Transparent. Thats all. There is more to truth than just facts, but you should be careful about how you present things.
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