The Starry Cave

King Solomon’s supreme secret is said to be his knowledge of the language of the birds. The language of the birds in tasawwuf or what is better known as Sufism, is the watermark of prophets, the wali or nabi. We can understand wali to be ‘saintly’, while nabi is a wali that has a mission in the world that goes beyond itself. By resorting to a word like ‘saint’ this invites a great range of misconceptions, because it brings the thoughts of modern man towards an image not in conformity with what a ‘saint’ truly is. A saint is someone whose maqam, or station is in divine proximity. This divine proximity can result in the saint being a recluse and wander incognito in the world, like a wali, or motivated by a certain mission is making the knowledge he or she wants to pass on available to the world, being a nabi. There is no difference in the station of the wali and the nabi, what differs is the compass, and the direction of attention. So, by sainthood we must understand a proximity to t

Traditional Ifá focuses on the importance of ‘ori tutu’, to have a calm head and a consciousness composed of tranquility and patience. It is only when the conscience is calm and tranquil it can make the connection with ‘okan’, the heart, that brings abundance. Òsún represents the principle of passion and in astrological terms we can say she represents the planet Venus. Just like the planet Venus can enter into relationships with other celestial bodies that either afflict its nature or bring its powers forth in dignity, so it is with Òsún. Being the Queen of Passion ties her effectively in with the powers of the Iya Mis, often referred to as Ajè. Ajè is often translated into ‘witch’ by modern ethnographers, who by this reveal their solidification in a completely profane terminology that limits these forces to be solely a mundane product., insofar as we have in mind the contemporary ideas of witches being humans in league with diabolic forces. Ajè IS passion. Not only ours, but the co

As time moves on and the reign of quantity solidifies itself in the world it leads to a series of effects arising from what we can refer to as a ‘profane perspective’ upon the mysteries. This profane perspective is one rooted in customs and opinions, where awe for the opinion of the masses rules experience and attitudes. We are emerged in a world of conditioning of a strictly mundane order. These factors are typical for the spirit of modernity where acts and words are in a greater and greater speed emptied for meaning and thus labels are made ready for receiving new contents that belong of the same inferior order of human conditioning on a social level. This is quite salient in the abuse of the term ‘tradition’ and ‘traditional’ in modern days, a word that, again on a profane level, do signify something handed down. ‘Tradition’ from a metaphysical perspective do indicate the involvement of the supra-human, which brings tradition into a superior order and reflects the timeless truth

BOOKREVIEW Sorita d’Este (ed.): Both Sides of Heaven (Avalonia Books 2009) The hierarchies of celestial denizens, they be fallen or close to the throne of God pulls and mesmerize people more and more as times strides on. It appears that the interest for ‘fallen angels’ in particular is growing rapidly and results in a vast field of opinions and sentiments of both the theological implications of the fall as well as personal encounters with these emissaries of secrecy and light. In the collection ‘Both Sides of Heaven’ 18 essays are presented, most of them have in common presentations of highly personal insights into this common field of experience. Unfortunately the more personal essays are also the more weak ones as they focus on revealing a world of sentiments and not real insights. The planes seems to have been confounded so to speak. This has resulted in a cluster of texts highly varied and of uneven quality. Some essays stand out greatly, such as Kim Huggens ‘Between Gods an

The secrets of the witches cauldron is riddled with many strange mythos and odd opinions. There are however three points that most ponderings upon this theme has in common. One is that the cauldron is a representation of the cosmos, the second that the cauldron possess oracular powers and the third that these mysteries somehow are connected to the old witches of the land, to those witches that has passed away. The cauldron as it is known amongst most currents of witchery (at least to my cunning) is a container with little contents. It can be filled with offerings and by this act the spirits of the old witches of the land can be moved by the sacrificial tokens both by word of deed and acts of reverence. In this sense the cauldron can serve as both a foci for the radiation worked up by the covines and as a point of attraction for the old dead witches. But there is another kind of cauldron existing, a tradition that seems to have been largely lost amongst us, these secrets are still exis