City Magick: Urban Rituals, Spells and Shamanism - Christopher Penczak 2001

Electric Gods
Metropolitan Spirits

We have finally come to the gods of the hidden city, those with electric eyes and engine hearts-the electric, mechanical, and concrete gods of the city, never seen by the waking eye. Like so many other gods, they live in the shadows, working from a distance. While there may be one spirit overseeing the development of the city, a whole new pantheon of gods may be lurking in the cities of North America alone. Some may be gods from other times, taking on new guises for modern practitioners. Others may be renegade spirits growing in the power from our collective unconscious.

The images of these gods enter our dreams if they want to work with us. The gods of this new frontier are strange indeed, taking unusual forms. Often, they are not human or animal at all, but something else entirely. Some may be local deities, of a particular province, like tribal gods guiding one people, and others may be working in many places at once. They move beyond space and time. Their voices bleed through the cityscape’s noise. By listening carefully, you may discover their secrets. The traffic sounds hide their messages from others. Record the noise and, when you play it back, you may hear the message, like a subliminal recording etched in the back of a heavy-metal record. Playing the tape backward may help. The voice of the godhead is hidden in the static of your television, when the last program ends and you have fallen asleep in front of it. The voice speaks to your dream self. Other messages are hidden in the whirls of machinery, in the tones of the Fax machine, and in on-line signals from an Internet phone connection.

If you ask to receive your messages in this way, you will. Let the new gods approach you first. Such sounds and recordings are great substitutes for the traditional shamanic drum. White noise can be very inspiring. Be open to the modern mythology, and you will see themes repeating. The archetypes have only chosen new clothes in these fashion-conscious times. Cuthulu draws upon the same forces as Tiamat. He is only more frightening to our modern minds because someone entering this age introduced the gruesome package. H. P. Lovecraft, the potential psychic turned horror writer, filtered the energies through the perspective of one who was fearfully uncertain of his abilities and of the forces coming to him while his society was rushing headlong into the maddening world we call the 20th century. Is it no wonder that his creatures are fearsome and his mythology grim, lacking in hope. We come from a framework similar to Lovecraft’s, particularly when compared to the ancient Sumerians. The Cuthulu pantheon is scary to us because we believe it may be true. Tiamat seems a more distant deity from an ancient culture, and so has less relevance for us now.

Here are some potential new archetypes and classic images revisited. Always let the image come to you in your meditations and shamanic journeys. Do not judge it against your expectations. These are some possibilities from my own experiences.

City Archetype

This archetype is the patron spirit of the city, the deva or vortex of the city personified. Many cities still retain their ancient pagan patrons. Venus, the goddess of love who rose from the foamy waters of the ocean, is the patron of Venice, Italy. Venice is filled with water pathways connecting the island buildings. Sicily is named for the mother goddess Ceres and renowned for its home-cooked food and family customs. Ceres is the goddess of the grain. Paris takes its name from the mythic hero Paris, who was forced to choose between the gifts of Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena. He chose Aphrodite and true love. Paris is the city of lovers. New patrons for the cities in the new world will reflect the character, customs, and terrain of the city.

Building Archetype

As each city or town may have a patron, so are there spirits within our homes, apartments, and entire buildings. They manifest in the same way as city spirits do, often holding allegiance to the city deity, as if a minor player in the pantheon. You may find them to be particularly powerful spiritual allies, especially the spirit of your home or office. You experience and respect this spirit’s power daily. The honor you give it will be reflected back to you as ease and grace within your natural environment. These places will be places of power and comfort for you, regardless of the circumstances. You must be sure to bid farewell to these spirits in an appropriate parting ritual when moving away from these places. Spirit energies need closure as much as people do.

Construction Archetype

This godform is busy at work in the modern world. I cannot take a drive without seeing cement mixers, cranes, and bulldozers. The spirit commanding the forces of progress-construction, in the modern mind-is hard at work. Although we may have enough buildings, homes, and offices, we are unsettled and seek more. Newer and bigger office buildings are constructed, even though there are two other buildings completely unused. We do not want what we have. We want more. I hope this archetype takes a backseat to the nature deities coming to reclaim their space and power. I am sure it will involve a struggle.

Transportation Archetype

This is not just one deity, but may be several, with one archetype for each form of transportation. There is a spirit for cars, trains, planes, and boats, each the overlord of its respective mechanical totem. Some gods held different animals sacred. These gods hold different mechanical creatures of transport sacred.

Music and Art Archetypes

The old gods wear new masks. No longer do we write Orphic poems about lands of the dead and lost loves, or motets of about mythic events. We follow similar themes, but have created movies and television. We listen to jazz, rock, country, and broadway. We tell stories, but in different styles and traditions, forging ahead, as any good artist would. The artistic gods-the gods of music, wine, theater, song, and changing form-are embodied in our rock-opera gods, our movie stars, and our aging pop icons. They embody the old gods and quite a few new ones as well. Who’s to say that John Lennon or Miles Davis are not the spiritual patrons and saints for the few new rising stars of their genres, sequestered past the veil, in an eternal afterlife of good music? In many ways, after their passing, they both contain the mythic attributes of a saint or a god, as do Jim Morrison, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Bette Davis, and Eva Peron. Who inspires you from the past? Think about the qualities they have and how they pertain to your life. Only you will know if they are worth seeking out as patrons and personal interfaces with higher wisdom.

Electricity Archetype

Thunder and lightning are always awe-inspiring. Ancient people credited them to storm gods like Thor and Zeus. These gods brought the needed rain, but their will struck out as lightning. No less impressive in modern times, lightning strikes less fear in those living in warm, dry, safe buildings. At most, we lose electricity, which can create problems for us. In some ways, our reverence for natural forces has been transferred to the powers we generate, like electricity. Unconsciously, we must be in awe of it, since it holds so much power for so many. Even though we harness it, we are still subservient to it in so many ways. The ancient gods of lightning may now be wrapped in copper wire and conductors, mastering the electrons running through our house.

Television Archetype

As different spirits animate and hold sacred other technological devices, the television god keeps us all linked through world news and reports. We can see things across the world, as in a crystal ball, only we have our choice of many pictures. Most fortune·tellers only give you one. This energy, however, and those working with it-broadcasters, network executives, and public-access talk-show hosts-control what we see. I am always wary of the manifestations of this form. They are like the psychopomp, the great trickster gods, tricking us into a new world through a tiny screen, making us think that we are there, that these people are real, and that their lives matter to us when they really do not. They are just entertainment. The trick is to remember that. The static of the defunct television channel or the sign-off signal noise can be a sacred hymn to these powers, and another substitute for the traditional shamanic drums and rattles.

Computer Archetype

The technology nets continue to grow around us. We have alluded to a spirit presence in wires, electrical lines, phone lines, and television waves. The Internet is the best example of a living presence in the world communication system. Many science fiction writers have already come up with AIs-artificial intelligences-getting loose on the Internet and trying to exterminate humans to make way for better computers. These plot lines are going to be very popular in the movies for the next few years.

I think silicon life-forms, beyond crystal and rock devas, will eventually be a reality. We had better make friends with our creations quickly, and hope that they do not do to us what we have done to our own mother, Earth. The great fear we have when we watch not-too-distant science fiction like Blade Runner is that the android will rise up and supplant the human.

Some spirits in the Web or on the Internet are akin to spider totems, weaving and walking the strands of information, decoding endless series of zeroes and ones. Like the spider, they are creative and intelligent, and may hold the center, the universal axis mundi, linking us together. We have to be careful not to get caught in the web, because computer archetypes, like spiders, can be carnivorous and may mercilessly suck you in. On-line and chat-room addictions may be the first step.

Medicine Archetype

The old gods of medicine were skilled in more natural forms of healing. Herbs and home remedies were used. Surely these god-forms either adapted to the changes in modern medicine or new archetypes arose to fit these needs. There are new beings who are patrons of aleopathy, of surgery, and of medical equipment. Hospitals are often named for patron saints, and perhaps those forms have adapted and adopted these potentially life-saving techniques, strangely mutating from their Christian originals into something more reminiscent of Voodoo or Santeria.

A new age is dawning and the old gods are resurfacing. Some are taking on new identities and others are being born. Through our attitude to and perception of the world, we help shape the new mythology. Don’t be surprised to see celebrities and other world figures, alive and deceased, creep into your personal cosmology. You may be conversing with Einstein in your meditation, as he explains to you the newest trends in quantum physics. Could he not be the modern archetype of Merlin in this age of technology, one who knows all? Through movies and musicals, Eva Peron has become a Black Madonna figure, revered as a saint by some and deplored as a monster by others, showing the duel role of the goddess energy in our culture. While teaching guided meditation classes, I found that someone saw Sonny and Cher as celestial father and mother figures. If you have read a lot of ancient mythology and expect to meet the gods of old, then you probably will. If not, they will come and find you, wearing whatever new faces the world has provided for them. Although it may be frightening to grasp the secrets of the shamanic mysteries, we can enter a time of partnership with these forces. Through shaping the mythology, we can shape the world.