Votive relief of Asclepius healing a dreamer, from the Asklepieion of Piraeus. 4th century.

Source: Archaeological Museum, Piraeus, Greece.

Dreams. Many cultures throughout the world – both ancient and contemporary – have given rise to the belief that the Dreaming is another world. A separate entity, bordering our own. Perhaps its own nexus of Reality. In the Odyssey, a woman by the name of Penelope (the husband of Odysseus) speaks of two different dreams. Homer writes of what she says:

“Stranger, dreams verily are baffling and unclear of meaning, and in no wise do they find fulfillment in all things for men. For two are the gates of shadowy dreams, and one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those dreams that pass through the gate of sawn ivory deceive men, bringing words that find no fulfillment. But those that come forth through the gate of polished horn bring true issues to pass, when any mortal sees them. But in my case it was not from thence, methinks, that my strange dream came.”(1)

Deception and Fulfillment. What doesn’t come to pass and what does come to pass. Both are the points on either side of a spectrum of possibilities. And when we Dream, the possibilities are endless. Why am I writing about dreams? Because my journey into where I am at now began with a Dream.

The Dream 
At the Spring Equinox in 2010, I had a dream about Alex Sanders. This is the first time I am writing about it publicly. I feared for a long time to even pen this because I didn’t want to be looked at funny. I did not want to receive any ire from the Alexandrian Community, and I certainly did not want to offend anyone. In 2010 I knew nothing about the Alexandrian Tradition. That’s not true: I knew it was a British Traditional Wiccan Tradition began by a man who was called “King of the Witches.” But my immersion at the time was in Stregheria, and in the ways of Graeco-Roman-Egyptian magick (Alexandrian Hermeticism I might call it). I was also very interested in Gardnerian Wicca, and I felt that it was that specific Tradition to which I was called to. I wanted to be a Gardnerian. That’s another story. Right now let’s focus on this Reality. This Dream. A dream within a Dream. Spirals and circles. They all meet together, coalescing and separating. Like Love and Strife. Aphrodite and Ares. Even Hephaistos. All have a hand or two in this perpetual dance.

Here was the dream (vision?) that I had of Alex:

I found myself sitting in a cozy chair by a fireplace. Between myself and Alex was a small table with some tea & snacks. He started telling me, “Do you know what it means to be King of the Witches?” I replied that I didn’t. He began explaining to me the significance of the Sacred King, the sacrifice, the Mask of the Horned One that the Priest must wear as his (in Alex’s words) “Vicar on earth.” Alex told me his life was a mask that he himself didn’t fully understand until he was close to death, and his struggle with his “identity” came from separating the Holy Mask from his human ones. The Sacred King, he told me, was something which came from the Holy Isle of Atlantis (mind you, I don’t believe in Atlantis, but apparently Alex did…or does.) He was not only a representative of the God, he WAS the God. He was the Lord of the tribes, and it was his energy which fertilized the land. Alex told me that it wasn’t so much the blood, but the occult nature within it which sustained the egregore of which the Sacred King was entrusted with. For those of you who do not know, an egregore is an occult term for what some psychologists might call the Group Mind, or the Hive Mind. It is the gestalt: the cohesion of both consciousness and subconsciousness within the spectrum of a social intelligence. It is the energy pooled by every person within an occult group, which is why screenings, secrecy, and privacy are so innate in Mystery Traditions. The Group Mind must be protected at all costs, and it is the job of a High Priest and/or High Priestess together who work to do just that.

Alex was lecturing me…no, he wasn’t. He was just talking to me. I was sitting and he was happy to share what he knew. What he was learning is more precise. Alex was considering himself a spiritual adventurer, tapping into the limitless potential of occultism. This was all he was telling me. He also told me that, as a Protector of the Tribe, he had to give his best. Alex told me he had been abused and used during his tenure as the Sacrificed King, and his time was coming to a close. There would continue to be questions about his role, but the Tradition needed, he felt, a new Sacrificed King. Someone to bear the burden of the Alexandrian Egregore, and guide it always.

To Awaken
In the Dream Temples of old, one was bathed and purified before entering the sacred. This purification might have gone on days or weeks, while sacred drink was given to you. There might have been some hallucinogen in the substance, but it was to prepare your imagination to be receptive to the Other. The veil of your Mind needs to be thin, and then both worlds can meet. Where both worlds meet in the consciousness, ecstasy occurs. Magick happens.

Since my last major post on this blog, I have incubated. I have spiritually slept, taking things in. My Temple disbanded, because people moved to different areas and interests changed. The Goddess Selene spoke and told another to start their own journey in an oracle given by me. I’m not upset. This is the way of things: cycles, spirals, change. In our Mythos, Nyx was reborn at the end of one multiverse cycle and the beginning of a new one. At the precipice is when She began to stir. I felt like Nyx: a precipice had come, and I was given the opportunity to continue or stay asleep. Instead, I took the opportunity to continue and breathe new life in my spiritual walk.

At the same time that my Temple began to come to an end, my journey found me contacting an Alexandrian coven. It would be a few months more that my Temple met and before Selene spoke, but I felt Alex’s pull. He inspired me to reach out. Perhaps it was the Magick of the coven as well, who called out for new members (unbeknownst to me). They too, had a Dream. They, too, walked in spirals. They too, had incubated for some time. Now it was time for the sleeper to awaken!

Resurrection
Awakening and Resurrection are two different things. To awake, one must be sleeping. To resurrect, one must be dead. Dead to yourself. Dead to everything. No pulse. No life. No quickening. The Flow has stopped, and Entropy has ensued. This is when the Dance stops: Aphrodite has united the elements, only for them to stagnate. They are ready for Strife: for the Axe of Areia and the blow of Hephaistos. They are ready for new life.

Sometimes we walk in peace, and wonder why still things don’t seem to be at their best within us. Sometimes the calm can be deafening, and the silence frightening. Sometimes “safe” should not be in our vocabulary. How can we live and break out, if safe is what we keep? Entropy. It is time to rise from the dead, and touch the energies of the Mother again. It is time to be back in the cycles, the spirals of the Dreaming, where Reality and Reality meet. You are there. You are the Nexus. All of it comes down to you and your choices. The decisions you make can break out into the multiverse into endless possibilities, but only YOU have the mind to make the decision that affects you and will, in turn, affect those around you. That Snowball Effect we will delve into in a later blog post. For now, let us return to my own journey, one in which I needed to resurrect.

I was dead inside. My relationships changed. My Temple was gone. My writing stilted. I separated myself, and compartmentalized everything where I tried to be the hero of my own problems. I caused so many of them upon me and everyone I loved dearly. Have you ever felt that way? Where you mess up, and you become the negative influence Facebook memes warned others about? I was that person. I won’t go into what I did, but I needed to find my Voice again.

…and I did.

Here I am. I am writing. My spirituality is awakened. Resurrected, actually. I am alive. And I only have more to give. My religious practices are integral, because they give me something to stand on. They grant me a passion to dance with life and cavort with death. I am an initiate of the Alexandrian Tradition. But my question continues: why me? I know I am an oracle. That much is certain about my calling. But why Alex visited me 7 years ago during the Spring Equinox is beyond me. Why he gave me that message is certainly beyond me. And, furthermore, why he visited me again is very much beyond my comprehension. Yes Alex Sanders made a couple of more visits to me. I don’t know if I should share them yet though. I’ll find out what Spirit says, and follow from there. For now, I encourage you to be content that in Dreaming lies your adventure. It is in the power of the Imagination that possibilities are born. And it is in the awakening and resurrection of yourself that you find the strength, courage, and power to come forth and speak your Truth to the world. Your Voice. And once you find it, do not let it go silent.

Eirene kai Hugieia!
(Peace and Health!)

~Oracle~

NB: Although in the vision Alex felt that a new Sacrificed King was needed, I encourage anyone who is Alexandrian who might read this to not think I have an agenda. I wrote a dream/vision. That is all. I have no agenda. Nothing. My goal is simply to share here what I felt Spirit wanted me to share. That is all. Thank you and blessings.

 

1) Homer, “The Iliad and the Odyssey.”