Piety, Pain and PTSD

This is a bit of a diversion from what we hope will be our usual content, but the message is important.

Piety, Pain, and PTSD

Many neopagan traditions are more focused on orthopraxy than on orthodoxy. This means that right action is more important than right belief. Piety is all about right action. Piety can be defined as "correct observance of ritual and social traditions; the maintenance of the agreements, both personal and societal, that we humans have with the Gods and Spirits. Keeping the Old Ways, through ceremony and duty."* Observance of the High Days, and establishing a meaningful personal practice is a big part of this. That can be a hard thing to do under the best of circumstances. Now, imagine trying to do it while living with a chronic illness. This is the reality that I, and many others, live with every day.

One of the hardest lessons that I have had to learn while living with a chronic illness is that sometimes, I'm just not going to be well enough to do the things that I want to do, even if those things are normally relatively simple. My daily routine involves a devotional period before I head to bed at night, and if I'm at work and out in the community as the sun sets I'll take a couple minutes for silent prayer just as the city falls into full darkness. The sunset devotional I never have trouble getting done... it only happens as a break in my work day. The bedtime devotional, on the other hand, can be pretty problematic. After working all day, it's not uncommon for me to not have the energy to do much of anything once I get home. Some days, I'm in so much pain by the time that I get home that I will crawl in bed and literally pray to be able to just fall asleep. It's on days like this that I first started running in to issues with pain and piety.

Pain alone can be incredibly draining. When my pain level is particularly high, sometimes it's hard to think. It's hard to reason through much of anything. It's hard to *do* much of anything. Pain can also make it very hard to get up in the morning, and I've never been successful at maintaining a morning devotional practice. Think about a time when you had a bad case of the flu. You know the general aches and pains that you had when you were sick? That's as good an example as I can think of of the pain that I live with every day.

Chronic pain effects your entire body. It can cause mobility problems. When it hurts to move, it's hard to enjoy activities that require a lot of motion. It's hard to get enough sleep, so you are missing out on restorative sleep a lot of the time. The sleep disturbance can lead to an increase in depression, lower energy levels and it can cause memory problems. Depression is a big problem for chronic pain sufferers. Sometimes, the depression is a symptom and sometimes it's a result, and sometimes it's both! It can be incredibly frustrating to deal with the daily realities of chronic pain.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder also presents some interesting challenges as far as piety. Sometimes all that it takes to push me over the edge into panic attacks, or flashbacks is a poorly timed word, a stray image, a word on a page, or even just a conversation with a friend that shouldn't be triggering. Imagine the worst experience of your life. Now, imagine being forced to repeatedly relive that event in full, graphic detail, even feeling the physical sensations that you felt during that event. This is one of the many realities of PTSD. Another challenge that it presents is dissociation. Dissociation is probably best described as "spacing out". It's a defense mechanism in which you've learned to "go somewhere else" to protect yourself from having to fully experience trauma. This may seem peaceful at first glance, but it's actually incredibly stressful. Dissociation also effects your entire body, and the physiological symptoms of extreme dissociation can be devestating. It exhausts the entire body; your nervous system, all of your organs, everything. To cite an example that a friend pointed out, dissociation is the same reflex that causes animals to "freeze" when they experience intense fear, and sometimes the animal doesn't survive the experience.

Between all of these problems, sometimes it's a wonder that I manage to get anything done. One thing that I have had a hard time learning is that sometimes piety isn't so much about the big actions, as it is about desire and intent. I usually desire to devote, but just don't have the stamina or focus, or I'm so dissociated that I'm too "out of it" to do the full daily rite that I would like to do. If I'm being honest, though, sometimes the desire isn't there. In these cases, I've really learned the truth of "faith follows action". The key to remember in this case is that it isn't necessarily about the big actions, it's about acting in the first place. I've had to learn that sometimes, all I am going to be able to do is say a few prayers, and that's okay. High Days are also difficult. Three Cranes is a three hour drive from home for me, and I'm not always up to making that drive. In the past, sometimes the only recognition I've been able to give to the High Days is a prayer and a general offering to all of the Kindreds, and sometimes the only offering I've been able to make is the effort that it took.

No one is perfect, and no one is going to be able to do everything that they want to do all of the time. It may be a bit more extreme for someone living with chronic illnesses, but I think the lessons that can be learned here are universal. The lesson to take home here is this; Piety doesn't have to be about the big actions, sometimes it's just doing the best that you can and the willingness to make the effort.


*ADF Dedicant's Manual, page 15

Magic as Prayer

Ouch. Hitting below the belt with the Rosary meditation, a longstanding favorite of mine. Nevertheless:

As the conservative, I can't blame you for playing conservatively, but I still think you're off a bit. The driving force behind the Rosary isn't just divinity, it's effort. "Pure" intercession is about as effective as The Secret, and with a much better pedigree of not working.

Like anything else, what drives the work is Gnosis. Pure magical will. Whether it's Paul exhorting Thessalonians to "pray without ceasing" or Crowley telling all young seekers everywhere to "inflame yourself with prayer," it's the effort of the thing that drives the wheel.

The visions and miracles generated by the rosary are gifts, to be sure, but they're given in measure that they've been earned. Go around once and pray 6 Our Father's, 6 Glory Be's, and 53 Hail Mary's. All 3 traditional mysteries? Make that 16, 16, and 153. Adding the Luminous Mysteries? That'll be 21, 21, and 203, please drive up. Officially the longest ritual prayer I've taken part in.

And, if you happen to work in a tradition that features 4 additional on top of that, you could conceivably in a single working pray 41 Our Father's, 41 Glory Be's, and 403 Hail Mary's in a single formal prayer.

And let's not start on the Novena, the traditional 9 days of formal prayer.

All these add up to one point: even the users of the Rosary recognize that results come from effort, and effort is a result of training. If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go pump some beads now.

Prayer as magic

Sometimes, the most effective magical working is also the simplest. Prayer is one of the simplest forms of magic within the context of religious magic. Prayer is quite simply an act of devotion in which we enter into a dialogue with the Gods, asking for guidance, offering praise, confessing or making reperations for mistakes, asking for assistance, etc. Through prayer, we seek to alter our reality by entering into relationship with the divine to effect change.

Certain types of prayer are also forms of ritual magic. Let's take a look at a specific ritual;

You sit, stand, or lay down, whatever is most comfortable. Next you take up a physical focus, in this case beads. You then use that physical focus to go through a systematic set of meditations, words spoken repeatedly, and specific mysteries to contemplate. Woven throughout the meditation is praise to the gods that you worship, and requests for daily needs.

Through this set ritualized meditation, you are able to enter into an altered state of consciousness that can be used for a variety of magical tasks. You also enter into rapport with the Gods who can also assist you. Now, take a look at the ritual that I outlined, and take a look at the Rosary. The Rosary is a perfect example of ritualized prayer as magic. The rosary is a great starting point to build your own ritualized prayers.

Now, prayer does not have to be ritualized to be an effective form of magic. All that's really required is your own desire, faith in the Divine that you are calling on, and a willingness to pray in the first place. As with any other form of magic, your own will and intention is important. All prayers made with faith and will are acts of magic. As I said, magic at it's simplest.

Hi, I'm Tanwyn and I'm here to speak for the more religious side of magic. My magical practice and my religious practice are tied so closely together as to be virtually indistinquishable. I am a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin, a modern neopagan Druid fellowship. I've also practiced fairly extensively with a number of other neopagan groups, and am currently seeking membership with a gnostic group.

My background is about as varied as my counterpart; Christian - Presbyterian and Anglican, to be specific, Mystic, Shaman, Neo-Druid, Celtic Reconstructionist, and various flavors of Neo-Pagan. I've progressed through and passed on initiation within an oathbound order, I've performed rites of passage and in a strange parallel to my counter-part, funeral rites for my grandmother. I can't claim to have ever personally earned money for any particular part of my religious or magical practice, although I did work on a volunteer basis for the local neo-pagan store for quite awhile.

I'm here to provide a look at the religious side of magic, magic that appeals to the Gods for power. I'm also here to provide a look at the more "traditional" side of magic, magic as you would see it in a lot of ecletic neo-pagan circles, and the potential uses - and abuses - of this kind of magic. Like my counterpart, a lot of my personal practice and personality are going to be reflected here.

I am Frater Treinta, and I'm here to represent the Wild side of magic. Although I'm an initiated Gnostic by baptism, there's not really an "initiate only" set of anything, so I'm not counting it. Other than that, I'm pretty well a self-styled Mage.

I'm here to represent Chaos Magic, bootleg QBL, "cheap, petty Sorcery," and all that is wild, untamed, exploring, pedal to the metal with nothing but a notebook Constantine magic.

And my background reflects it. Kabbalist now and forever (but preferring the bootleg Hermetic version,) Shaman, Golden Dawn, Southern Baptist, Pentecostal, Mystical Christian, "Gnostic Agnostic," Gnostic, Mathemagician, and just enough Taoist to own the book. I've done funeral rights for my great-grandmother, read Tarot cards for beer money, explored the Astral in an imaginary spaceship, adapted RPGs into working magical systems, and programmed magical effects into Python programs. A disturbing amount of my Astral work is based on the DC Comics universe.

My purpose here is to present the more random, primal, undocumented, experimental, edge-pushing styles of magic that are immune to the abuses to authority by not having any authorities to start with through a trickster/adversary persona. I will be emphasizing certain parts of my practice and personality here to make my job easier, as well as my counterpart's.

And now, the representative from Chaos yields the floor.