The Garrison
I practice a form of meditation which could be called the “imaginary conversation.” This is a technique which turns up in odd places - Robert Graves employs it in his classic neopagan work The White Goddess, and Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, recommended it as a form of devotional practice in his teaching. It also turns up in Thomas á Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, in some modern occult books on pathworking and in some manuals of meditation, among many other places.
As a ceremonial magician, I structure my rituals to center on the traditional seven planetary intelligences that were called upon by wizards in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The days of the week in many western languages are actually named for these deities, and must have served in pre-Christian times as days of special sanctity for honoring them. In English, the Anglo-Saxon names for the gods are used, so unless you know who those gods were, it’s hard to see the planetary connection. But in Spanish and French it’s quite clear: lunes (Monday), martes (Tuesday), miércoles (Wednesday), jueves (Thursday), viernes (Friday) - the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jove (Jupiter) and Venus. Same thing in French: lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi. In those languages, the association of the Jewish and Christian holy days with the weekend seems to have worked the two weekend days loose from their old planetary associations. In English, however, we retain them: SUNday, and SATURday, days once holy to the sun god and, of course, to Saturn.
I work ritual seven days a week, each day honoring the god whose name the day bears. So, for example, if it’s Friday, my altar is adorned to honor Venus and the liturgy for that day will call upon her. I never forget to honor Our Lady and her Horned Consort daily as part of this system, and they have their special days set aside, as well.
On Tuesdays, the rite focuses on Mars, the god of war. The altar cloth is red, the various accoutrements adorning it have the appropriate Martial associations, and the sigil of Phaleg is displayed prominently. Early in my journey along the path of magic, a dream came to me in which I saw the cabbalistic Tree of Life engraved into a ceiling with its fruits representing the seven planets, along with Earth and the celestial realm. The only one I could clearly identify in the dream was Mars, known on the Tree as Geburah. (The name Phaleg for Mars, which I mentioned earlier, comes from a grimoire called the Arbatel of Magic.) This dream was dense with events and images, all of which I am still meditating on to this day. But the sighting of Geburah led me to the conclusion that I was receiving a little guidance: Mars might be of special importance to me in the course of my life.
As it turned out, it was my rituals to Mars that first led me into the technique of “imaginary conversation.” The theory behind this method of speaking with the gods is based on the idea that we really can’t directly perceive the Spirit World as it is. It is for this reason that humanity has devised myth and religion to be filled with so many fantastic images and outlandish stories. They don’t depict the bare actualities of the Divine, but their symbolism and drama can help us to see and understand what our physical eyes and rational minds cannot. Using our imaginations to encounter and communicate with the Spirit World is the well-established means whereby humans have been able to find paths which lead to fullness of life and to meaning and belonging in the cosmos. Every vision and apparition ever seen by humans, even when it comes from spirits and gods, is clothed in recognizable images, however fantastical they may appear. And those images arise from the store of memories and archetypes found in our own brains. Our imaginations are the wardrobe of the gods, whereby they adorn themselves and we are able to behold them. To attempt to see them as they are without that clothing . . . well, the ancients universally remind us that we are not equipped for that sight, that to look upon their true forms leads to alienation, madness and death. Moses was warned of this on Sinai; the Greek virgin Semele died in a fire kindled by her own terror, the Indian warrior Arjuna, to save his sanity, prevented Krishna’s full revelation of himself in a terrifying vision by confessing his true nature, the Japanese foster parents of the crane maiden lost their beloved daughter after seeing her real form, and Lydian Attis, in the madness to which he was driven by the inconceivable, took a knife and castrated himself, dying from the loss of blood. The imagination, in short, is our safe looking-glass for beholding the Divine.
In one of my imaginary conversations with Mars, years ago when times seemed safer, I visualized us as two soldiers sitting on a grassy ridge, overlooking a wide prairie, with mountains in the distance. We sat at a campfire in the early morning light, and Mars, on watch with me as though we were on duty, disclosed himself to be in a storytelling mood:
“You may not know this, Zopilotay, but our Roman generals were not very different from the football coaches and quarterbacks in your world. Roman legions were something like modern football teams, in that they compiled effective plays and practiced from playbooks. Now, their plays might better be called ‘maneuvers.’ These maneuvers were not written down in binders or notebooks, but were learned and memorized by the men who practiced them. And the generals who led those men knew every one of those maneuvers like the backs of their hands. Just as a quarterback can, with a single word, call his players into a specific formation to execute a play, so, too, could these officers give the command, and every soldier out on that field knew exactly where to be and what to do. Those men had practiced in camp like any modern team would do, and in action, each one of them could move immediately into the appropriate position.”
“This is fascinating, oh Lord of War and Adversity,” I said. “But why are we talking about formations and practice?”
“We are, at this moment, in a time of peace,” said Mars. “No enemy awaits us in those fields below just now, but we know that their territory is not far away. Someday, voices may stir them to the hunt, and then, we shall see them before us, readying themselves to throw us down. For now, we are not a fighting force, but a garrison. We occupy a safe place overlooking the scene and our eyes are watchfully open. As your modern philosopher George Santayana reminds us, ‘Only the dead have seen the last of war,’ and trouble sooner or later comes. Now, I should like to pose a question to you, if you’re willing to hear it.”
“My ears are open, oh Lord of Might.”
“What shall this garrison do with the time of peace given to it? With what shall we occupy our thoughts?”
“The playbook?”
“Yes. The playbook. Do you know it? Has it even been devised among you? Have you practiced the maneuvers in your mind? Do you know your place and duty in each of these?”
“Oh Mars,” I said, mournfully. “I have never given a moment’s thought to any of this, and I suspect that many of my colleagues in the practice of magic would say the same. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“A garrison, even in the absence of an enemy, is not really at peace. It is merely at vigilant rest. Don’t you suppose you had better start learning what will be required of you when the challenge comes, when aroused and angry powers array themselves to force the world into their righteous image of the future and obliterate your own?”
“Where do I start?”
“Know your attackers. Learn his means and methods. Devise and practice your responses for defense, until you know them like the backs of your hands.”
“It is hard to think seriously about strategy and defense when there are no immediate signs of a threat.”
“Oh, but there will be. In times like those which are to come, when men fear for the future, there will be those who decide that all their woes are someone else’s fault, perhaps your fault, that your kind, whoever you are, must be brought to heel and suppressed. While there is always hope that the need will never arise to organize for the purposes of defense, is it not the duty of a garrison to be ready and prepared for the worst?”
So our conversation continued until we agreed to let the matter rest until some future Tuesday. I bid farewell to him through the formality of the liturgy, dismissed my guardian elementals with thanks, and closed the rite. My mind was troubled after that conversation and remains so to the current day. I think of the magical folk I know, of how diverse we are in our ways of working and thinking. Against a new generation of witch-finders, could we close our ranks and act together? Or would we once again be taken piecemeal and reduced, one witch at a time? In the 17th century, it was every wight for him- or herself. How shall it be now?
May I suggest - consider doing trainings and workshops with activists if you are able to. Even if you don't plan to take part in protests or direct actions, there are still a lot of valuable things to be learned. Working in affinity groups, tactics vs strategy, running meetings, infosec, keeping calm in high intensity situations, staying safe in a crowd, de-escalation, conflict resolution - all potentially useful skills to have under your belt.
