Not In Kansas Anymore (19 page)

It would have been easy to make fun of them. The rites and ceremonies they follow include wearing robes of various colors, using symbols of the Kabbalah, employing special handshakes and signs, and memorizing ritualized speeches. They worked hard at it. A row of robed members sat to the side. Each member was assigned to bring the power of a certain god into the ceremony by concentrating on that god power constantly. Each initiate was led into the room wearing a long black robe with a hood over his head and a rope at his waist. The Open Sourcers, some of whom have theatrical backgrounds, likened the initiation to a play being performed for an audience of one: The audience was each initiate, who was “pinged,” they said.

By that they meant that the ceremony was supposed to thump the newcomers into awareness of who they are and of the information being beamed at them by the cosmos, the gods, the spirits, the whatever it is. Their first task was to learn how to listen; symbols and rituals are an ancient language for such communication.

“That's how you write to the universe, and that's how it writes back to you,” said Sam. “It responds. There's an echo.” The echo may come later in experiences, dreams, visions, realizations, synchronicities, omens. The Open Sourcers believe that every phenomenon a person experiences is part of that communication, but
they also realize that anyone who took every experience as an omen would go crazy. So people must learn how to listen and how to filter at the same time.

Sam said the Golden Dawn process attempts to do what shamanic training does, but in a less traumatic way. “They totally shatter you, and then try to piece you back together again, and hopefully they will pick up most of the pieces. Okay. This [Golden Dawn magical system] is a method that evolved after someone looked at that and said, you know, we are losing pieces here. So they invented a little more orderly process. We do each of the pieces one at a time, and we assemble it into something a little more effective.”

“You're trying to induce non-normal states of mind, but doing so in such a way that you don't hurt yourself,” said Joseph Maxx, another Open Sourcer. As for the ordeal, life will provide that. “You don't need to ask for ordeals. They're going to happen anyway. You are going to get hit.”

Magical people often talk about magic as being fueled by energy. Sam and Joseph prefer to say that magic is about information. In Golden Dawn practice, “you are manipulating the information matrix of the universe,” said Joseph. “The whole universe is information. DNA is information. The atomic structure is information.”

“All of the world is the mind of God,” said Sam, who works in computers. “That's one of the Hermetic statements. So it's all data. It's all the thought of God.”

 

T
he fourth bridge over which people cross the divide between reason and occult wonder is the way of the mind. In this way, people embrace magic because of their experience, but then the reverse occurs. They experience magic because they've
embraced it, writes Tanya M. Luhrmann. The second part is something like the socialization that happens within any profession. People adopt a group's methods, its language, and finally its vision of the world, which means they pay attention to certain things and ignore others.

There's nothing odd about that process or unusual. It happens to lawyers. Their schooling teaches them to pay attention to fulfilling the law. They talk of justice, but their true allegiance is to law, not justice. Journalists learn to value freedom of information. Their allegiance is to the public's right to know. People's privacy is secondary. Doctors learn to value life. When they keep humans alive at any cost, they are simply following the socialization of their group. At some point each profession behaves in a way that differs dramatically from common wisdom. It happens in religion too. Once again, magic is the same.

Magic is fostered by shared beliefs that are set out, developed over time, and reinforced by experience. Perhaps the most common idea is the idea that I've used as a definition of magic itself: that there is an energy or force in the universe that can be tapped by certain actions, words, and intentions. People who believe in magic believe that objects and events respond to human intention and that when that intention is backed up by certain words or actions, the response is even stronger. Magical groups and magical literature say, “Do this spell or ritual and watch what happens.” If subsequent events seem related to the spell or ritual, they say, “See, it worked.” If events don't relate to the spell, they may say, “Try a new spell,” or, “Try doing it during the full moon and watch what happens.”

Perhaps the most important shift is not that the student affects reality—that may or may not happen—but that the student begins
to notice in a new way. His relationship with experience has shifted. Now he is looking for meaning and pattern and connections. Life starts to have a flow, and he begins to be a participant in the direction of that flow. The groups and the books reinforce this experience by talking about it, putting it in stories, making jokes about it, and even critiquing it. All this gives magical experience weight and reality. Over time the many shared assumptions and experiences begin to be described in jargon or code words that have deep meaning within the group.

Another stage of magical development may come when magic teachers instruct their students to meditate, as they often do. They sometimes provide guided meditations that have students imagine themselves traveling into magical realms. Teachers might also encourage students to remember their dreams and interpret them. Magical practitioners often set up altars where they perform rites and pray. All these practices foster a turning inward. As the student begins paying more attention to his interior world, his thoughts and visions seem more and more real. The world of meditation and dreams is, of course, often filled with surreal, magical images that have great meaning if they are taken seriously. Joseph Campbell believed that Tibetan Buddhism and other Asian religions have such extensive pantheons of gods because in their extensive meditation the monks encounter inflections of experience that are personified as deities. It's an intriguing idea that dovetails with Carl Jung's thoughts. One scholar of religion, J. Gordon Melton, gave Jung credit for rescuing magical thought. He said Jung's ideas about archetypes and the universal unconscious gave credibility, theory, and fuel to neo-pagans who embrace ancient gods and goddesses. Some pagans agree and think of their deities as parts of themselves projected into human and animal forms.

None of the four bridges to magic would work for me. I had no good magic memories from childhood, no terrible events propelling me, no call to rebellion, and no inclination to join a magical group and be socialized. The only way to magic for me was to stop talking about it and start experiencing it.

I
was often surprised at how modest magical stories were. People asked for more prosperity in the new year. They wanted a shut-mouth spell to silence a gossip. They wanted to get somewhere on time during rush hour. They needed a job. One man wanted a prostitute to sleep with him. I assume he didn't want to pay. He made a bargain with a succubus, which is a spirit woman who comes to men in the night, and not long afterward the prostitute got drunk and slept with him. He was well pleased with his magic, but a drunk prostitute isn't exactly like asking for a Mennonite virgin.

When I asked for examples of magic they'd done, their stories were sometimes amazing but rarely matters of great braggadocio. Joseph Maxx was once doing a spell to banish bad work done on a friend. His friend was holding a piece of paper in her palm as ceremonial words were said over it. The paper began to crinkle as though
being affected by great heat. I'm not saying that wouldn't have spooked me out, but still again it's not on par with making frogs fall from the sky.

Zardoa the Silver Elf told about doing magic to bless all the babies in the world. Women all around him began to get pregnant, which was not his intention. Zardoa wasn't claiming immaculate conceptions, and he wasn't saying he fathered any of those babes except his wife's. His story was merely an example of magical surprises, easily passed off as coincidence. Silver Flame told of seeing a black spirit cat run across the floor while she and a friend were having coffee. They both saw it and believed it meant something protective was around their children, but the cat didn't prophesy. It didn't jump on their laps and disappear in a puff of smoke. It merely ran through the room.

Shawn the Witch's highest compliment was to call someone really magical, and he didn't say it often. One of his candidates was a pagan named Michael Pendragon, who runs a Salem shop called The Oracle Chamber. Pendragon claimed that he could dream about a certain convenience store, and if he bought a lottery ticket there the next day he would win. Shawn backed him up, but Pendragon never claimed to win huge sums, and the dreams didn't happen every week. In Pendragon's opinion, the most powerful magicians might be people who don't consciously practice magic. People who amass great wealth, celebrities, and great generals are all able to cause change in accordance with their will, which was Crowley's definition of magic. They may never know their will is activating magical principles, Pendragon said.

I immediately thought of Arnold Schwarzenegger. How much more magical could a story be than his? The columnist George Will wrote of him, “Arnold's confidence approaches mysticism. Extending
an arm, his palm toward his face and his fingers curved as though holding an invisible orb, he says ingenuously, ‘If I can see it, I can achieve it. And I have the ability to see it.'”

Shawn also praised a witch named Jen. She smiled at his description and replied, “I don't always feel magical.” For her, being magical was more a feeling about her own ease and buoyancy in the world than the success of any particular spell. Her example of successful magic dealt with a time when her daughter wanted to transfer to another class. Jen asked the principal for the transfer and sent an e-mail to her magical friends asking for help. Shawn had replied at once: “Consider it done.” And so it was. Jen saw magical workings. I didn't. I thought the letter to the principal had done it.

I'd pledged to put my skepticism aside, but I couldn't. Many times I wanted to ask, “How do you know that what happened wasn't a coincidence or the result of the ordinary effort you put into it?” Finally I realized that other people's experiences were never going to be enough. Just as I was coming to that conclusion, Kioni volunteered to do some rootwork for me, whatever I wanted.

“How about a root to help a friend lose weight?” I asked.

No, he said. Hoodoo doesn't do weight magic. “Just push back from the table. That's the only way,” he said. “And besides, you do hoodoo for yourself. Not for other people.” If they want work, they get it for themselves.

“Okay then. We ought to do something specific. So I'll know if the hoodoo works or not.”

“No,” he said. “You can't test hoodoo. You have to have faith. It won't work for you if you test it. How's your sex life?”

“Fine.”

“Fine? That means not great.”

“Fine,” I said, drawing out the
i
in the middle.

We were driving toward his house. For half a block the car was silent. Then I spoke.

“Okay, okay. Could a spell make it great?”

Maybe it could, he said.

“What would we need? I didn't, uh, bring anything.” I was too shy for the plain speak of hoodoo. Hoodoo sex spells often require semen or vaginal fluid or menstrual blood. I hadn't brought anything like that along and would feel pretty strange if Kioni sent me to the bathroom with a Q-tip.

Pubic hairs could also be used for sex magic. One of the best conjure stories I heard was Cat's hoodoo interpretation of the most famous pubic hair in America. When Anita Hill testified that her boss Clarence Thomas had gotten up from the table where they were working, gone to his desk, picked up a Coke, and returned asking, “Who has put a pubic hair on my Coke?” white people might have thought he was making some strange sexual play. But black people who know hoodoo would have known that he was suggesting a woman had hoodooed his Coke by putting the hair on it, according to Cat.

Kioni didn't mention anything about fluids or hair. For such spells, he might use a blue penis candle and a red vulva candle, plus herbs, roots, and magnetic sand. He would watch how each candle burned, and he might gradually pull the two together, using a dark blue thread, until they were burning together. Sex spells can increase male or female “nature,” which is the word conjurers use for libido. They can also make it so that the partners won't be able to perform with anyone else. In one spell, the woman masturbates with the penis candle and does a ritual afterward that includes putting nine needles in the candle. Whenever
she wants to have sex with her beloved, she pulls out the needles. Afterward, she puts the needles back in the candle, and he, poor man, goes as limp as a hanky.

Kioni offered to have some candles overnighted from Lucky Mojo. I shook my head. I'd never had relations with a candle, and if I did, I could never keep quiet about it. Somebody in my family would get the story out of me, swear secrecy, then whisper it around, and nobody would ever forget. They'd pass it through the generations. Children would giggle about Auntie Christine and the candles long before they knew the joke. Thirty-five years from now I'd be an old woman tottering and doddering into Christmas dinner, and they'd be off in the kitchen whispering, “Hide the tapers.” Wink, wink. Snigger, snigger. “Y'all be sure to count those candles before she leaves.” Har, har, har.

Or worse, I'd do the spell and get my wish, and it would be like the fairy tale about the fisherman's wife who made such foolish wishes. My nice husband would become some raging sex animal and run off with another woman, or he wouldn't run off with another woman and I'd become one of those wives who make up excuses for why they can't come to bed just yet. He'd want me to wear black Merry Widows and fishnet stockings and walk around the bedroom in high heels even though we live in Wisconsin and my thighs get goose bumps.

“How about a spell for the success of your book?” Kioni said.

“I'd like that,” I said, thankful we'd moved to another topic.

“And we could do a general blessing.”

“I never turn down a blessing.”

He asked me to bring a purple hanky. “Where would someone get a purple hanky?” I asked. Maybe it was a black folks thing, like big hats for church ladies. Just go to any Wal-Mart, he said, which
was a tip-off. This wasn't a black thing. Wal-Mart doesn't sell hankies. Women use tissues and throw them away. They have for forty years. It's amazing what guys haven't noticed.

When I pointed that out, he told me to buy some purple material and some yellow material. Fabric stores are almost as rare as hankies. I couldn't find one, but the night before we were to do the work I drove deep into the neighboring city of Cocoa looking for any kind of store that might have cloth.

When I spotted a Bealls far back from the street in a strip shopping center, I turned in. Outside the store were racks of T-shirts. The first one I touched was purple. Beside it was a yellow one. I pulled the tags to see their price, $2.87 a piece. It was a sign, right?

The next morning I took them out of the sack all proud. We hated cutting new shirts, but we would. Hoodoo requires sacrifice.

Then he asked again, “What do you want?”

And I said, “Look, maybe we shouldn't do this.”

“Why?”

“I'm sorry. You said it won't work if someone doesn't believe. If someone expresses any doubt, you send them away, tell them not to waste their money.”

I hadn't offered to pay, and he hadn't asked, but payment was important. People pay Kioni hundreds of dollars for work. I'd seen a $500 money order on his desk. I ought to pay. That's how hoodoo works. People pay for what they get. You pay for the hoodoo hand. You pay for the skill and time and power of the conjure. When you evoke the saints even, you pay. What you don't pay for, you don't get. I could pay, but if I gave the money knowing all the while that I considered it wasted, what kind of magic would that be?

I didn't believe. I wanted to, but I couldn't.

“Well, sometimes someone else can believe for you,” Kioni said carefully. “I could do that for you in this case.”

That might do it. But I'd seen Kioni work. I'd seen him shout and sweat, incant and cry. He constructed magical symbols. He mixed roots and herbs and oils. He displayed photos and told them what was expected of them. He opened his Bible and read the Psalms. He etched names into the candles, dressed them ritually with the right oils. He lighted the candles and watched how they burned. He did it with all his big, open, warm heart. If I didn't pay and didn't believe and wouldn't give hoodoo credit, I'd be just spitting on his effort.

“It's whatever you want to do,” he said. He grinned and put his palms face up. “I'll do it if you want.” In an echo of the Dapper Gent at the vampire ball, Kioni was telling me that I had to choose.

“No,” I said. “No. Why don't we just go get some lunch and you can show me where you used to live?” So that's what we did. We also drove along the Indian River looking at the rich people's mansions, talking about which kind Kioni would have someday.

Jesus said that in his father's house are many mansions. He said he went to prepare a place. Magic says, “As above, so below.” Put them together, which Kioni does, and there's a mansion in his future. He believed it without a doubt, and, for a little while, as we drove along and I listened to him, I believed it too. It was a great afternoon.

But I left Florida disappointed in myself. If I was going to get below the surface of magic, I would have to be more intrepid. I obviously wasn't ready to commit. If I could
feel
something, maybe I'd move a little closer.

 

F
or feeling, I looked to the vampires, because they specialize in that most important concept of magical thought: energy. As I've already noted, the idea of an energy or vital force available in the universe for human use is a central idea of magic. It got a boost
in the 1700s from a man named Franz Anton Mesmer, who believed that a kind of psychic ether pervades all space. This ether is moved by the heavenly bodies just as sea tides are. Ill health comes when a person's etheric tides are blocked in some way. Mesmer believed he could use energy that he called animal magnetism to cure people of illness, and he seemed to have success. Mesmerism, as his method came to be known, is so close to hypnosis that the terms are still sometimes used interchangeably. Mary Baker Eddy also thought an atmospheric vital force was the secret of good health. Today thousands of people practice forms of energetic healing. Some are based on Asian medicine, some channel divine energy, and others remove energy blockages and tangles.

One primary difference between what the psychic, or psi, vamps are doing and what other energy workers and religious folk do is that the vampires don't draw energy out of the ozone or from gods or goddesses or from natural objects—they pass it back and forth among themselves and other humans, not as a healing force but as life energy. They believe they need the energy of other people to survive. The idea of feeding off other people seemed a rather wacky notion to me. Why would people who thought such things about themselves admit it, much less adopt a name for it and tell everyone? Another magical mystery.

When I heard that a vampire family called the House of Kheperu was having an open weekend of workshops, I signed up. The house's founder is a long-legged thirty-two-year-old named Michelle Belanger. She is a woman who definitely has strong energy. She wears her hair man-short, henna-colored with a blond forelock. The way she moves about a room reminded me of the rangy ease of cowboys. One year when I was at a Wyoming guest ranch, I asked a group of cowboys to stand before a weathered old barn so I could take their picture. They were reluctant to do it, but
once in position, they effortlessly fell into the world's most understated macho poses. Then I took a photo of their wives, who were beautiful women with great force of their own, but their photos seemed so pallid and lifeless in comparison that I despaired. Michelle would have posed with the guys.

Early on during the House of Kheperu weekend, we formed circles to trade energy. About forty people were there, most in their twenties or early thirties and most in black, with a bit of leather and a few chains. Some had shaved heads, some sported fluorescent hair, but mostly the hair was black. I saw a few things that you don't see every day, at least I don't. One evening a very pretty thin girl with long red hair asked a bald guy if she could lick his head: “I just love to lick bald heads.” He noted that his head was shaved and might not feel too good, but she insisted she would love it. She started at the back of his head but couldn't reach the top. So he knelt down, and she licked from the base of his neck over the top of his head and finished looking very satisfied.