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

Altars and Shrines
Urban Magick

To prepare for your journey through the crossroads, the place to claim your power, you should set up a home base. Your base of operations is your altar, a place of power in your home, office, or other sanctum. Rituals are done at the altar. The more you use it, the more it grows as a base of power. Altars can be out in the open, set up permanently and in active use, or more discreet, hidden in your home. Your tools can be hidden casually among the knickknacks on your bookcase, mixing the magical and the mundane on the shelves. You can hide your altar in a closet, or have a special room only for your magical workings. Finding a room to dedicate to an altar can be difficult, however, for the space-conscious apartment renter.

The altar is not only a space to work your spells and meditations, but a temple to honor the powers who work with you. Traditional altars honor patron gods and goddesses, spirits, totem animals, spirits of deceased family members, and the four elements. If your working altar is not set up permanently, you can create small shrines to your powers discreetly in your home to honor them and to ask for help. Special shelves can be reserved for them. Make one corner of a room only for items honoring your totem. No one else needs to know your intentions, as long as your totem does.

Urban magick often necessitates change from tradition-from seeking out the divine in the city, to experimentation with new techniques, totems, and rituals. Necessity is the mother of invention, and urban altars, shrines, and offerings should reflect these creative changes. Don’t follow an altar setup you read about in a book, including this one, unless you want to. Take the ideas and make them yours. There is no right or wrong to building an altar. There is nothing you can put on the altar that will be disrepectful if you do not use it with disrespect. As a modern practitioner, use the tools available to you in the city.

Traditional principles are revered because they work. They have to work, or they would not continue to be used. There are many magical traditions and cultures out there from which to draw. Many practitioners have success with them in the urban environment, because that is all they desire to use. They may have had successful practices and training before embracing the urban environment. These traditions are their anchor and safety zone in a somewhat hostile atmosphere. Traditions that focus less on the spirit manifesting through the land and nature, and more on the actual practice and development of magical techniques, thrive in urban environments. Magical societies such as the Golden Dawn and lodge organizations such as the Masons work well here.

Before we delve into experimentation and design, let’s look at the basics. While earning my degree in music, a wonderful composition teacher of mine always told me, “You have to know the rules before you break them. Once you know them, you can do anything you like.” Little did he dream his words would sing true about ritual magick.

Most altars have representations of the four elements (see figure 4, page 109). A chunk of concrete works nicely to represent the element of earth on an urban altar. Candles are a staple on most altars as the element of fire. If you dislike candles, try electric lights. A friend of mine from college lived in a dorm where no candles were allowed. She used Christmas lights on her altar. They work quite well. Around Yule, I have Christmas lights on my office altar. People just thought I was being festive. Little did they know that it was a shrine to the powers to keep the business afloat! Air is traditionally represented by incense, but you may be tempted to use air fresheners, oils, or other aromatherapy products. Be creative in your scent. Many quest for the perfect chalice for the element of water. An upscale urban practitioner may use a cut-crystal goblet, wine glass, or brandy snifter. The bottles left over from these delectable spirits can even be used as candleholders, if you choose (see figure 5, page 109).

Voodoo is an excellent example of urban magick. The basic tenets of this faith come originally from Africa, but, as it has migrated across the Caribbean and to America, it has changed, adapting from the culture of the mother continent to the streets of New Orleans. African deities are masked by Catholic saints. Magical tools are hidden as household items, much like the witches underground during the persecutions in Europe. Santeria, a spiritual sister to the practices of Voodoo, has a similar history. Voodoo practitioners’ altars use all manner of modern magical items not available in their ancient African home, like votive candles and red brick dusts. These faiths are beautiful amalgams of the new and old worlds. In short, the tradition learned to adapt. Magick will always adapt to the current culture. City magick is one stage in that long process. For more information on Voodoo, particularly from the perspective of the city, Urban Voodoo: A Beginner’s Guide to Afro-Caribbean Magick, by Jason S. Black and Christopher S. Hyatt (New Falcon), is an interesting resource.

Figure 4. A traditional altar.

Figure 5. A modern altar.

Icons for your gods, goddesses, and totems should fit the character of the spirit with whom you are working. If you deal with a more mechanical god or subway totem, machine parts and tools are perfectly acceptable in this space. Cobble together your own statue with nuts and bolts, in honor of these powers. Use pictures cut out of magazines for icons. Frame them, create a collage, or create a cardboard stand for each, making two-dimensional statues.

A television makes an excellent surface for the modern practitioner. There is no better icon from the urban age than the magick of the TV (see figure 6, page 111). The workspace should be strategically placed somewhere in the room where you will have space to work. The altar surface provides a resting place for your tools and symbols. Entertainment centers can add shelf space to store your magical items. The static on the TV can be used as your ritual tones to enter gnosis, or videos and music can be added to your ritual. The TV’s constant chatter can supply quick word association to clear your mind. Often, the steady rhythm of drums and rattles in traditional shamanism serve to distract the conscious mind, bringing it deeper. Other constant noises from the modern world can be used in the same way. Tune the TV to something about which you do not care or don’t understand, like a foreign-language channel. The television background “chanting” is like a modern Tower of Babel, connecting us to the world both magically and visually.

Figure 6. A TV altar.

I have found the TV to be a medium for magick traveling over a distance, much like a photograph or voodoo doll used in traditional magick. In some ways, the television screen can replace the crystal ball as a divining surface. On a mundane level, it brings such terrible information to us about the world. Although we need to be aware of these atrocities, they often convey a feeling of helplessness. News stations rarely report all the beautiful things people do. This feeling of powerlessness debilitates many. Many leading-edge health experts suggest a “news fast,” in which the chronically sick or depressed abstain from newspapers or TV reports. When I see a tragedy, my immediate response is to help. Sometimes it is too late. Sometimes the most reasonable action is to get involved. At other times, my reasonable response is magick.

When sending healing energy to a war-torn area or disaster zone, I go right up to the TV and send my intent through the image to the actual people and place needing it. It can work with any spell. When you see a tragedy, send colored light for comfort through the screen to the grieving family, starving child, or accident zone.

These techniques can be applied to personal magick as well. When doing money magick, watch or tape the stock market report. Then send your intention for increased prosperity through the image. Send thoughts of peace, love, and acceptance of all when watching The 700 Club. It will not only help them, but will diminish your own prejudice against persecutors.

Others have used the television screen, both on and off, as a reflective surface for scrying, as they might use a crystal ball. Transform your TV from a tool of dis-information and hypnotism to a global healing device.

EXERCISE 13 -TV PROTECTION

This technique requires that you actually watch a television program. You should use a program that is fairly consistent, sticking to one location for a time. News specials focusing on a troubled part of the world are good. Documentaries on public television, science channels, and arts-and-entertainment networks can supply education on a particular place. The many documentaries on Egyptian or South American pyramids spring to mind. If you have a VCR, use it to record several programs, so you will have a choice when you desire to do this exercise. With a little experience, you will be able to re-create the exercise easily, using whatever programming is available.

Do Exercise 1 to enter a meditative state (see page 17). I also suggest doing Exercises 2 and 3 (see pages 20 and 25). Turn on your TV and watch the program depicting a particular place.

Watch the screen for a moment. Then close your eyes. Visualize yourself there, at this place. Open your eyes again. Repeat the process in little steps, spending more and more time visualizing and less watching.

Close your eyes and visualize the entire setting overlaying your own room, as if were a ghostlike hologram. In your living room or bedroom, you are simultaneously sitting in another part of the globe. The setting is complete. Feel the air change. Smell the different smells. See the images overlaying the physical reality. Hear different sounds. Use all your senses. Imagine that the TV is projecting the entire scene, like a three-dimensional movie. Imagine that the television screen is a gateway, and that your mind/astral body is projected through the gateway, to the new location.

Use this time to observe or interact. By becoming a part of the scene, you can psychically retrieve information that you wouldn’t see on a flat TV screen. If it is a place of trouble, you can use intention, sending light or any other healing and calming techniques at your disposal.

When the process is complete, put out the intention you wish to close this link. Imagine wiping it away, dissolving into the light of the glowing screen. You can also draw a banishing pentagram over the screen, as in Exercise 8 (see page 60).

Once you have this experience, you can re-create it, using the local news or any other show. I think it is best to stick with “real” places, physical places on Earth. When you see the news and feel horrible about a crisis, you can lend your psychic support. If you simply want to experience a place in greater detail, let’s say there’s a show on Hawaii, use the screen, not only as your window on the world, but as your psychic door. It does not matter if the show is taped or old, the doorway is not encumbered by time. You can specify through your intention whether you will focus on the present, or on the time period when the film footage was taken. Later, you can experiment with fictional settings and let these settings be a mask through which the shamanic worlds speak to you.

EXERCISE 14 -TV SCRYING

The following exercise can be a little unnerving for some, particularly those used to traditional scrying techniques. I suggest that you try the exercise as written, but if it simply does not work for you, substitute your favorite scrying device, like a crystal ball, bowl of water, rising smoke, or tea leaves. As always, the rule for adapting magick is to use what works. I was very comfortable with scrying through crystal, but have experienced success with this technique as well.

This exercise needs a channel with no intelligible programming, such as a station of static or a scrambled pay-cable station. Use something with a fairly steady random noise. If you like to watch scrambled channels to guess what the movie is or what the characters are doing, then stick to simple static.

Do Exercise 1 to enter a meditative state (see page 17). I also suggest doing Exercises 2 and 3 (see pages 20 and 25). Turn on your TV and watch the unintelligible channel. Set the volume to a comfortable level. You may prefer a light reflecting off the television screen. If so, either point an electric light at it, or light a candle before the TV and watch its reflection. Experiment both with and without a light.

Stare into the screen and let your mind wander. Stare past the screen. You are not so much looking at the static as gazing beyond or behind this veil of white snowy noise. Let your focus go in and out. Let the sound distract your conscious mind.

Ask whatever question you have. It can be a simple yes or no question, or a desire to see something or someone. You can ask for details about the future, past, or present, or to ascertain the wisdom and consequences of taking certain future action.

Let you mind wander, being open to the answers you receive. Scrying tends to work in one of two ways. You may get an image or series of images depicting real-life events. Imagine your mind’s eye playing a personal movie that appears to be moving on the screen (or a crystal ball, if you are using that). Or you may see images that are symbolic in nature. You may ask if your new job will be successful. If you see a dollar sign, that is a yes. If you see a zero, then it is a no. When asking about love, you may see a star. For some, a star may be a “good” sign, like a lucky star. Others may first associate it with the dark star or the Dog Star, and make other interpretations. Let the symbols trigger a series of nonlogical thoughts to give you your answer.

Repeat the process with all the questions you have. When the experience is complete, turn off the screen and return to “normal” activities.

The techniques here can be adapted in many ways. Try closing your eyes and using the static sound as a method for triggering shamanic journeying. Combine it with other sounds and music. One of the most intense journeys I have ever taken was with a tape of white noise playing on one machine, a drumming CD in another, and someone doing live drumming and rattling over me. The random mixture of these sounds was intense. The whole effect resulted in a very successful journey. My goal was to make peace with my grandmother who had recently departed, and I did.