City Magick: Urban Rituals, Spells and Shamanism - Christopher Penczak 2001
Face Painting, Glamours, and Riding
The New Urban Temples
Tribal people all over the world recognized the shift that occurs in consciousness when donning a new identity through mask and paint. Not only does the pigment paint your body, it alters your spirit, allowing you to take on new characteristics. Different symbols, colors, and materials can be used, depending on the occasion. The face-markings for a harvest celebration will be different from those used when going to war. Celtic warriors charged naked into battle, painted only in blue woad pigment, believing the symbols and plant dye would protect them from injury. Makeup and face painting in general have lost their magical charm. Movie magick uses makeup to effect transformations of actors for the silver screen. Women, in particular, use makeup as a part of their own daily transformation, creating a simple mask for the world. There is magick in face painting and it is time to reclaim it.
Ritualize the process of face painting when preparing for your sidewalking journey to the underworld. Getting ready through clothes and makeup is the start of your invocation. Taking the makeup off is the banishment. Depending on what kind of establishment you plan to seek out with magical eyes, makeup may not be restricted only to women, though in America at this time, it is more socially acceptable for women to wear it than men. Alternative establishments are perfect places to experiment with face painting, including symbols and designs drawn on the body with makeup, regardless of your gender.
When you are getting ready, either by dressing in special, unusual clothes, washing up, face painting, shaving, or any simple act of transformation, the mirror is one of your most magical tools. Prior do doing these exercises, you should consecrate your mirror, charging it to be a magical tool, as described in chapter 5. The mirror, like any scrying device, allows you to see beyond the physical. In this case, you are looking with your magical eyes at your aura, the persona you project. Like Inanna, you are stripping away your outer accoutrements and then slipping into your new identity.
Glamours take makeup magick one step further. They are like illusions, but nothing quite so holographically real. They are ideas, attributes, and images subtly projected for others to pick up. They are like magical masks, but not in a physical sense. By altering your aura, your energy field, you can project the qualities you want other people to recognize. Your illusions won’t necessarily turn a five-foot brunette into a six-foot blonde, but they can help a rather demure five-foot brunette project the image of a dressed-up demi-goddess or demi-god for the evening. They work in the realm of presence. When actors project a certain character, not only acting like the character, but thinking like it, they unknowingly provide a glamour of sorts. Here we do it with a magical purpose in mind.
Think about the kind of identity, the qualities, you wish to invoke for the next exercise. Meditate on how these qualities are different from your normal persona. Would you like to learn more about them, and perhaps, at some point, incorporate them into your everyday life? Or do you simply want to experience how the “other half” lives? Whatever your personal motivations, seriously reflect on what you wish to become before attempting the next exercise. Have a sidewalking destination in mind that is appropriate for the new qualities you have invoked.
EXERCISE 22 - GLAMOUR
Charge the mirror you will be using to be a magical tool, to aid you in this ritual. It can be your bedroom mirror, bathroom mirror, or a full-length mirror. Charge all the mirrors you will be using.
Start with Exercise 1 to get into a more meditative state (see page 17). Then affirm your protective shield as in Exercise 4 (see page 27). This is particularly important when doing any invocation, even when you are not working with a specific spirit or deity. You do not want to invite the unwanted into your being. Spend a simple moment visualizing your shield of protection.
Go through your normal routine for “going out”, but be quiet, meditative. Put on some appropriate music in the background to set the tone, but nothing that will take you out of the light meditative state you are in. Take a shower or bath, wash up, and stand before the mirror.
Visualize the persona you want to assume. Look at yourself in the mirror with your magical sight, adding the qualities, quirks, and appearance you want to project to the world tonight. As you gaze into the magick mirror, imagine and allow yourself to change. At first, it’s a lot like playing dress-up and pretending. If you feel slightly foolish to start, you are on the right road. Keep it up until you feel you have adopted this glamour as your own for the evening. You are still you physically, but, magically, you are adopting a new face for the world. We all wear many masks, often subconsciously created. This time you have a conscious choice in the construction of your mask. Understanding who you want to be, even in fantasy, gives you great insight into your own personality, your soul’s own ego mask.
As you imagine and allow these things to come into being within you, dress the part. Put on makeup, cologne, perfume, clothes, and jewelry that are appropriate for this new guise. Mark yourself, even if the symbol is only worn under your clothes. You will know it is there. Put all the finishing touches to the ensemble to make it as real as it can be. Believe it. Know it. Live it. Be it.
Do your sidewalking journey, as described in Exercise 9 (see page 79), with a nightlife destination in mind, a goal for your journey. As you enter the establishment, shed any final vestige of your former personality, at least for this evening, and adopt your new guise completely. This is an adventure, but remember the role of safety and common sense in every magical exercise. Do not let this new guise lead you into foolishness. No matter the guise or persona, you are always solely responsible for your actions and their repercussions.
Experience the place in this new role. On the journey home, start to reflect on what you learned this evening, about yourself, about the city, and about the world.
When you come home, go through a similar dismantling process, reversing the glamour and resuming your normal mind-set. Shed the clothes and jewelry. Take off the makeup. Complete the ritual by looking back into the mirror, letting go of the new attributes, and invoking your normal self-image. Wash up and get some rest.
Another method for shifting your persona is reminiscent of the voodoo practices. Invoke a god-form and allow it to “ride” you. You are not being possessed, but rather are asking a specific god or goddess to merge part of their essence and consciousness with yours. This is very similar to more traditional invocation processes, in which you invoke a specific deity. Here, you are simply invoking the god’s or goddess’s qualities into your body. Sometimes, if you have the gift of clairaudience, or psychic hearing, you will hear the voice of the persona as part of your own inner dialogue. For these new temples, you will probably stick to inviting the more rousing or powerful deities, tricksters, or those who simply like a good party. Dionysus, Pan, Kali, Loki, and Erzulie come to mind. Dionysus is the god of wine and ecstasy. Pan is a Greek satyr-god, full of lust and sexuality. Kali is the devouring mother, the dark goddess whose dance destroys all obstacles. Loki is the Norse god of mischief. Erzulie is the voodoo loa whose eyes are red from weeping that no man can love her enough. She is a particularly fun goddess to be with when an ex-partner is in the club. By looking through the eyes of these beings, and, more important, letting them look through your eyes, you view yourself and your world in a different way. This different perspective can give you insight into your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.
The spirit experiences movement in the physical world, and the person experiences the essence of a deity within. This can range from union, which I advocate, to total control. Control is a difficult issue and, personally, I choose to co-create with my gods and spirit allies, instead of giving up control and responsibility. You will be the one held responsible for the actions of your body, regardless of who or what is in control.
Before attempting the next exercise, research a deity or spirit with whom you wish to work. If you have met one that resonates with you in previous practices and exercises, then choose that one. You may choose a unique city being or a more traditional mythological figure with whom you are intimately familiar. When starting this exercise, invoke those who feel most comfortable to you. Later, you can turn to beings with whom you do not resonate, as they can be valuable teachers. Until you are thoroughly familiar with the process, however, stick to those who resonate with you.
EXERCISE 23 - RIDING
Start with Exercise 1, to center and balance yourself, and Exercise 4 for spiritual protection and activating the auric shield (see pages 17 and 27). As in the previous exercise, activating the shield is a very important step. You may even want to perform this exercise in the center of a magick circle.
Ask to connect to the being with whom you desire to work. State the name three times. Then, invite the deity into you, asking to invoke it in a manner correct and causing no harm. Ask only for energies that come in perfect love and trust, causing no harm.
Be with the spirit. At first, you may feel silly, as if you were playing pretend, but, as the process continues, you will identify more with the spirit. As with the glamour, you can feel your aura, your magical presence change. As you blend with the being, you can feel its qualities become a part of you. Some feel the presence as a simple blending of two wholes. Others identify solely and completely with this new being, until the invocation is completed.
Continue to work and be with this entity for as long as you are comfortable. Perform a sidewalking jaunt, a descent into the nightlife world, or simply stay where you are and experience life from this new point of view.
At the end of the session, you should thank the spirit and bid it farewell. Ask to release it completely and safely, harming none in the process. Feel the presence leave you. Perhaps leave an offering to it on your altar the next day, or light a candle in its honor.