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

Futurama

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? That’s what all psychics are asked. Most people can’t trust in the universe or create their own future, so they need to know what is next. Where do we go from here? An assurance of happiness and health is needed, or a warning to avoid disaster. As a community, family, tribe, city, country, or even planet, we are all co-creating our collective fate. What I do affects you, and vice versa. What we do as a group affects all other groups around us and all these groups affect life on every different level. Not many of us consult with the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms before taking action. Not many ring up Mother Earth to ask what’s best for the planet. Perhaps we should. We all have a responsibility to each other. What kind of future do you want?

Before we reach up to the stars, or even out to a new level of existence, a new dimension, we need to remember all the important things right here. Before we engineer new environments in sealed bubbles on the Moon or Mars, if we haven’t secretly done so already, we need to learn balance in this vast living biosphere called Earth. Here, we have a closed system that used to enjoy a natural, balanced state. Its resources were renewed, all things depended on one another, and life continued in a manner almost assuring that life would go on indefinitely. At some point, we took steps to change that slate. We marched out of a homeostatic balance and into something else. Now we have reached a point at which we are literally punching holes in our little biosphere, through pollution, ozone damage, and nuclear testing. No one knows how this shift toward imbalance started, but it did. Some may rightfully say that cities led the way.

Perhaps cities are like a virus, demanding the sacrifice of all resources to replicate itself, like a viral attacker in the body. Viruses use up everything, regardless of the cost to their “host,” and then move on to the next victim. We have already discovered that cities are like living beings, communicating with those who would listen and understand their power. I don’t think, however, that our potentially fatal misstep occurred with the building of the first city. It came a bit later.

When the ancient cities were created, they were temples of learning, art, magick, and commerce. When we look at our records of Egypt and Summeria, arguably some of the oldest civilizations, we notice that marvelous cities seem to have sprung up from nowhere, very advanced and evolved by our standards, even today. The logical progression leading toward these civilizations is nowhere to be found. Boom! Suddenly we had marvelous pyramids and temples. These cities are far older than many in traditional archaeology wish to admit. The archaeological records mark, not the rise, but the steady decline of civilization. Somewhere, we had a really advanced society, embodied in a city, but observing and honoring the life force in Earth, and even the cosmos. It was led by philosopher kings who honored magick, astrology, and the gods who created it all. Fervent religious devotion was the manifestation of this honoring. As the society declined, however, people grew accustomed to the comfort, and forgot to honor these powers, or, worse yet, were forced by the ruling parties to observe ceremonies that had lost meaning for the people. Different cults and factions grew up, instigating the “us-versus-them” mentality, the “my-god-is-bigger-than-your-god” idea. Conflicting mythologies reflect that difficulty. Through these squabbles, which devolved into to holy wars, many forgot the one central spirit running through everything. I think most of the world has forgotten it since. We continue to make war, war on religion, on territory, on ethnicity, and a war against the planet that we think we need to subjugate. Even as we lost the true majesty of these special learning and spiritual centers, we continued to build more, trying instinctively to recapture the lost spirituality of first civilizations. We didn’t know what was lost, only that cities were good at one point, so we continued to build them, searching for what was good in them. As each declined, we, as a people, spread out and made more. Some wise ones returned to the land, to the jungle and forest, to find what was lost. There, they could reconnect with the spirit. Perhaps that’s what happened to the native people in the Western Hemisphere, the Anasazi of North America and the great Mayan city builders. They disappeared when the city model no longer worked for them. Most people living in a city, ancient or modern, do not want to give up the lifestyle they have grown to know, even though it might be missing something. Many proclaim the higher realms and dimensions to be cities made from gold, silver, crystal, amber, and white light, glistening in perfection. Our modern fascination with Atlantis, a real or imagined place, stems from our desire to reclaim the perfect city, the golden land of Utopia where we lived in harmony with all. Everyone had what they wanted. The myths tell us, however, that Atlantis eventually degen, erated into a feuding war-torn country, plagued with internal and external struggles. Atlantis was first noted by Plato for its attacks on Greece. The Atlanteans’ abuse of power led Earth herself to rise up and use the seas to swallow them.

The repeated attempts and failures of all these cities may prove that the model is flawed. No one in recorded history has gotten it right and kept it right, so why do we think we will? They may be correct. I think the answer goes back to a fundamental flaw in our collective civilizations. They forgot the spirit running through all. Everything is connected. Everything is alive. Everything affects everything else. Everything must be honored. If we remember and teach that to every generation, I think we have a chance, even if we live in cities.

Our cities have been built over our Earth’s energy vortices. They are intertwined now. We can change our cities from the model of a virus, sucking the energy up. We can transform the parasitic image to one of symbiosis. Everything evolves. We gain from a co-creative relationship with life on all levels. If we honor our creations, they will change with us. We can adapt our cities from the overpopulated pollution- and crime-filled zones many of them have become and head them in the direction of light and love. We have the technology, the will, and, now, the magick. We can do anything we choose. What do you choose?

The practice of city magick is a step in the right direction for many. Awareness is the first key to understanding our situation. By becoming aware of the living forces around you in all forms and understanding that they must be honored and respected, you can move toward the future. This book is only the start of a new magical journey. It gives the modern mystic new ideas for practice and raises more questions than it answers. How those questions are answered depends on your individual tastes, desires and personal tradition. Hopefully, your eyes will see things in a different light, one in which magick is a growing, evolving system, not a static relic. Older traditions and translations of the oldest magical works are great resources, inspirations, and wells of knowledge, but they were written for another time, for another people. Modern magick is for modern people, taking the tools from the past and carving out a new future—exploring, discovering, sometimes making mistakes, but ultimately learning from all. Urban magick will shift and change as society changes. Technology, music, and cultural symbols will be dramatically different, even in the next ten to twenty years. Whenever a culture changes, the magick and mysticism associated with it change. When the climate for magick was difficult, the country witches used their brooms and kitchen knives as tools. When mysticism became more accepted, seekers used separate ritual tools from their household items. The direction our world is taking is still to be decided. By exploring the life force all around you, by discovering that magick is not restricted to certain locations or certain types of people, but the birthright of everyone everywhere, you help determine the course of our collective future. Magick is a part of everything.

Some simply wish to sweep all this under the rug—modern magical traditions and our modern society—and return to the Stone Age to recapture what we once had. Barring the invention of a physical time machine, we can never go back, truly, only forward. So we must deal with what we have created, here and now. Many magical traditions hold the idea that you reap what you sow, what you do comes back to you in countless variations. Part of your spiritual growth is learning to deal with what you’ve sown. Those who don’t learn, or at least remember, these somewhat karmic lessons are destined to repeat them. This is where evolution and responsibility cross paths. As a world, we must deal with our own creations in concrete, steel, glass, and circuitry if we are to ever learn. As you can see from this book, they have much to offer. Go out and create, explore. Find the voices of the spirit connecting us all in everything. Learn all you can from the world around you, city and country, street and forest, fountain and lake. They all have words to share with you. Only then can you take these lessons and create a new world.

As we approach the dawn of the New Age, what many prophesy to be a new Golden Age, we must go forward and create a new world, not try to recapture the past. We can incorporate the best of ancient and modern wisdom to create something new. Will we move into partnership with our environment, transforming the model of the city from virus to symbiote, a healthy relationship for all? Will we move forward and create a lasting Utopia, a true shining bright city? Like the psychic reader being asked questions, the future holds infinite possibilities. The future holds what we want to create. We are all our own psychics, holding the answers to the future. What do you choose to create?