City Magick: Urban Rituals, Spells and Shamanism - Christopher Penczak 2001
Nightclubs
The New Urban Temples
If business places are where we spend much of our time working with the gods of prosperity, then nightclubs, bars, and taverns are where we go to worship the gods of ecstasy, music, wine, dance, love, and sex. Here, we spend our special recreation time—when we are not in front of the TV, that is. Friday and Saturday nights are spent searching for some nebulous enjoyment we seek to make tangible. They are part of the magical power of the city, coming alive when the conventional world slows down. As we come to see the city itself as a partner and patron, a living pool of energy, the life it breeds at night becomes a potent setting for magick and exploration. In many ways, the hidden city, our urban shamanic underworld, literally consumes the visible, waking city of the daylight hours. By exploring these habitats, you can walk the underworld paths, eyes wide open, here in the physical realm.
Venues for our nightlife come in all forms. Following the “birdsof-a-feather” principle, similar people tend to gather at each place. There are local bars with friendly faces and pool tables, and more traditional lounges, often with singers and piano players for live entertainment. Some are jazzy, while others have a more “Las Vegas” flavor. All are magical in their own right. Las Vegas is a magical city of light, wonder, and illusions. Anyone gambling there will agree. Live entertainment also comes in the form of rock clubs, with guitar-heavy bands trailing the circuit searching for fame and fortune. Other musicians and wanna-be rock stars frequent this club scene. Some come in support of their brothers, while others salve their egos, ripping apart their peers’ creative endeavors. The revival of coffee houses can be included here. They may not be clubs, but they can foster a similar environment. Live music, poetry readings, and the ever-present social exchange over a caffeine-rich liquid constitute a sacrament peculiar to these venues. Perhaps most important to the shamanic world are the various dance clubs, offering everything from top-forty hits to underground and illegal raves, where primal beats are pounded out, often shamanically taking others to a place within, even if they know nothing of magick or shamanism. These clubs serve that higher purpose in a very unconscious way, unknowingly letting patrons explore the frontiers of consciousness. By going to them with a purpose, knowing full-well their magical qualities, you can reap even greater benefits of self-knowledge. Ultimately, self-knowledge is the goal of the modern magician.
Like an ancient initiation, we pretend to descend into the underworld, a dark regenerative place where we meet all manner of strange beings. These rituals mimic some of the most sacred myths. Many gods and goddesses descended into the underworld, the hidden city, to return transformed. In Celtic myths, we see the recurring theme of a child abducted and taken to the underworld. Most familiar are the tales of Mabon and Pryderi. The child usually returns steeped in underworld magick, while the mother undergoes some tragedy. In Greek myth, Persephone, as the maiden Kore, is abducted by the lord of the underworld, Hades. There she sheds her maiden persona and assumes the role of Queen of the Underworld. She returns to the surface for part of the year, and, with her mother, the grain goddess Demeter, signals the growing season. When Persephone retires to the depths, the land again goes fallow. An earlier version of Persephone’s myth tells us that she was not violently abducted, but willingly seduced. A goddess who, no doubt, descended of her own free will is the Sumerian goddess Inanna. Deciding to claim the power of her sister, Ereshkigal’s, underworld throne, she traveled to each level of the underworld. At each level, Inanna was forced to shed one of her belongings, her clothes and jewelry, until she reached the lowest part of the underworld completely naked. Though her bid for power ultimately failed, her story teaches a more important lesson. To descend to the darkest places of these hidden cities, you must shed your old identity, the very traits, characteristics, and objects on which you base your self-perception. Only then can you arrive at your true, essential self, even if only for a short time. Then you can claim the underworld magick.
Descent into the nightlife is not always as dramatic as this, but it does have similar connotations. In this place, we wear unusual costumes of power to attract the right attention. We undo our usual, nine-to-five identities to become something new. By shedding the old and trying on new roles, we hope to discover the core, essential being within that is beneath all outer identities. This transformation is part of the descent. This dark world operates under a whole new set of rules. The norms of behavior may not apply, depending on what section of the underworld we visit. Strange customs are invoked. By unhinging our own identities, it is easier to move and operate in this realm to complete the tasks at hand.
Some of our experiences lead us to a being who has just the right words, attitude, or insight that we need, both on a mundane and an esoteric level. I’ve had many wonderful conversations in such places, with people whom I barely know, who happened to tell me exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it—as if my guides were speaking through them, and perhaps they were. These recreation centers have become new holy ground, where elaborate rituals occur and words of power are exchanged. There we may renew passion or vitality from these encounters, or we may fail the initiation and leave more broken than when we started. If this all sounds silly to you, on your next sidewalking trip, with your magical senses open, step into a club and see what happens. You may be surprised.