Pantheonics

Perspectives on Psychoanalysis & the Gods

(I was recently invited by Cadell Last to be the first guest on the Philosophy Portal’s new EDGE project — hosting a mutual sensemaking session for the overlap between Xagick, Magic & Psychoanalysis. It was a curious and intelligent group whose points of contention were very informative: What is the appropriate significance of Aleister Crowley? Should we lean toward a normative or diversified view of the occult? Is astrology inherently anti-agentic? Is the magical ritual of “crossing the abyss” analogous (or not) to Lacan’s notion of “traversing the phantasy?” That last question, in particular, will haunt the current essay.)

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ENTITIES are a big topic. Too big. We will leave the ultraterrestrials, hyperstitional chthonians & cosmic unintelligibles for another day. This collection of micro-essays will focus specifically on those imaginal and etheric collectives of “deities and sub-deities” with whom we relate through language, attitude, and ritual.

The class of entities which, from the earliest anthropological records, human esoteric instincts, individuals, and networks have invoked, petitioned, and embodied. The primary organs or elemental streams of an enchanted world.

Gods, etc.

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DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE GODS? In a God? Goddess? Conventional discussions about deities are concerned almost entirely with the ill-defined but socially relevant act of “believing.” Xagick, however, requires cultivating an instinct for challenging the social recapture of the sacred.