The Starry Path is the system of magick or spiritual path I’ve been walking for several years. The earliest mention of it in this blog was six years ago, but I know it was a part of my life well before then, but I’d have to dig out old magickal diaries to be more specific. That will have to wait though, this is my time of year for rereading my Abramelin journals, though the visionary experiences during my Abramelin period are definitely part of the Starry Path.
The Starry Path is a system of magick that grows out of several different practices but has become its own path. It is a gnostic tradition in the sense that it relies on personal gnosis as much as it does on outside factors. It is an ecstatic path as it takes the ecstasy born from gnosis to transcend normal consciousness or reality. A path meant to open the mind to the unconstrained abstraction that is reality. That is such an awkward phrasing for something that seems impossible to put into words without experience. Opening the mind to an abstract shifting world of multiplicities and paradox, the strata of the world we know. That is of course more of the advanced goal and practice.
It is a path of gnosis and ecstasy, of the experiences and the ephemeral. That means that the path has the goal of mystical visions, but also a goal of removing the mental constraints we put upon our perception that limit our ability to understand and interact with reality.
The Starry Path has connections and resonances with Sabbatic Witchcraft, Feri Witchcraft, TradCraft, Qabalah, Vajrayana, Ezidi beliefs, Ceremonial magick, and Enochic magick. (Not Enochian, Enochic) But the Starry Path isn’t part of these paths, nor would it be correct to say it grew from them, or was based on them. The Path is not a combination of disparate practices, but a method of gnosis, a system of arcana that grew from their moments of clarity. But there are similarities and connections, resonances and echoes with these traditions, and others, these are just the ones I am most familiar with. I’m torn between saying it’s another facet of these currents or convergent evolution. In reality, it’s probably both, neither, and so much more. (This is where you get into the unconstrained abstractions I mentioned above)
I think that Andrew Chumbley said it well:
All currents of Magick flow from a single fountain…all currents are adapted by the channel through which they pass and my work has been influenced by many traditions and authorities of occultism, but nonetheless, in articulating such Magick as I have dreamt of, I am manifesting its Indivisible Unity as best as I am presently able.
ix, Azoetia: The Sethos Edition, 1992,2002
As a system of arcana that is being revealed to me over the years, I’ve often been reluctant to talk about it publicly. Over the years I’ve worked with and taught other people I know and trust about the path, but never anything public really. It feels egotistical in some ways to talk about a “new” system of magick you’re “creating.” Even if it is not new, nor is it being created, just revealed and codified. I’ve also been concerned about releasing things half-baked and half-understood, for fear of misleading others who look into it. The witchy urban legends of someone screwing up their life by using a bad translation, or an incomplete text, or whatever is really just a story, I know that, but yet I did worry about people using an incomplete path I showed them and stumbling.
Things have shifted over the years, my misconceptions about parts of it have dropped away, other things were expanded, and I was worried about someone trying something before it’s “perfected.” I see now (thanks to repeated Clue-by-fours from the spirits of the Path) that it is a living breathing system, and in many ways, it will never be complete.
As such I will begin blogging more about the Starry Path, and I invite those interested to explore the path with me.
So what is the Starry Path?
In broad strokes the Starry Path is nothing that unusual, it seems to draw on familiar and almost universal mythological themes: Beings of the heavens, descending to earth, to teach, to love, to live, and over time losing their way. What I’ve found interesting in my exploration though is the heavy stellar influence on the Path, it is called the Starry Path after all. While other resonate paths may emphasize the stars this Path really seems to put them in the centre in many ways. The spirits of the Path have intimated, or even outright said, where their story lies in myths, what is right, and wrong, and too subtle to be either right or wrong. The spirits of the Path, specifically the Elder spirits are Promethean beings, bringing the Fire of the Heavens down to Earth and giving it to humanity. The Path contains both those large abstract and subtle magicks that have been with humanity since our beginning, but like humanity, it has evolved. It has grown with humanity to keep relevant and applicable to us.
Currently, I would divide information on the Starry Path into three forms.
Some of the information is relayed in this almost poetic spiritual form. It has similar mouthfeels and rhythms to spells, myths, and hymns.
You do not need to be able to see our star, you only need to know where in the sky it is. This is why we taught you so much on how the heavens move, so that we could be tracked, so that you could find us, so that we could communicate and come down to bring you our fire.
or
We breathed the Black, we with Stars in our veins still hold the Night in our Hearts. When we Fell Into this world we enlivened bodies of our Fallen Family, living in transmuted corpses. Listen well as we stare into our Hearts, Listen well as we stare into the Night, slowly careening overhead our Family Sings us Home.
There is my “translation” of that. Sometimes there is no need to put that in more day-to-day language, other times, specifically with instructions, I expand and give my commentary, giving something that is easier to read and reread to know what you’re doing.
My post on The Sorcerer’s Plant is a great example. I was given a more poetic explanation, but I “translated” it into something that was easier to share and discuss.
The last division would be stuff that is solely my writing. Sometimes information is sung at me and through me, but sometimes it’s just a download, so while the information comes from the spirits it forms is purely my own.
The Black Mountain of Fire falls in that category. No poetic or wordy explanation was given. Just a vision and download of information that I then wrote out on my own.
In the future, I plan to share some of the poetic descriptions of the spirits, from the spirits, and how they are connected to the path. I will talk of the role of salt, fire, and stars, and introduce the spirits on this path.
This post has been sitting in my draft folder since before I shifted to my own domain. A recent conversation with Polyphanes about the Stars of Ursa Major nudged me again to share this. Since there was a connection between what the spirits of the Path have told me, and what he has worked out from the PGM.
Going forward I will try to write more about the Starry Path. Now the fun part is deciding where to start.