Originally published in Peacock Goat Review Vol. 1 No. 6

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A Mesopotamian Method for Summoning Spirits

Necromancy, exorcism and spirit summoning were well known arts in the ancient world. In some cultures they were the domain of kings, in others priests, and in yet others they were the domain of highly skilled magicians. In ancient Mesopotamia they seemed to be the domain of all of the above. I have done my best using the available resources to reconstruct the most common method for summoning spirits in the method likely used in ancient Mesopotamia. It has been informed by some more recent magical literature of the sort as well. A full bibliography has been included.

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Ritual Implements

Scepter of Kingship – I have included two versions of the scepter; one of my own design inspired by the Solomonic blasting wand and the historical scepter of kingship from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur, used to command respect from unruly spirits with a symbol of divine authority

Dagger – Traditionally made of bronze but any ritual dagger or athame should do, used to draw astral symbols

Chalice – Terracotta or carved stone recommended but any kind of glass or chalice will do, used to hold drink offerings, in this case use wheat beer

Scrying Surface – A bronze mirror is ideal, you can also use polished obsidian, a reflective pool of water, a black mirror or a crystal ball, used to see the spirits

Alter Tile – Ideally you should create this from carved stone or terracotta in the shape of the Star of Shamash, used as the center platform of the ritual space

Light Source – Traditionally an oil lamp would be used, but wax or even LED candles with flicker will do, used for lighting and a source of energy for the spirits

Ghost anointing oil composed of some combination of the following ingredients:

• Juniper
• Fresh Poplar Leaves
• Water
• Milk
• Oil
• Wheat Beer
• Wine
• Sulfur
• Lentil flour
• Crushed Hematite
• Crushed Turnup
• Fish Oil
• White Honey
• Cinquefoil
• Bulbous buttercup
• Goosegrass
• Couch grass
• Catnip
• Mustard Grass
• Milk of Magnesia
• Dirt from an area where crickets live
• Dirt from a crossroads
• Mullein

Mix together and leave overnight

You will need a piece of clay that you have written the name in cuneiform of the spirit you wish to conjure on your alter

You will also need a wood or clay figure as a vessel for the spirit to incarnate into

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Ritual Format

Perform during dusk on a Sunday.

Prepare your ritual space by performing the four winds invocation ritual included in last month’s issue as part of the Ritual of Weila. It can also be found here: http://gnostictempleofinanna.org/en2-e2-nu-ru-su4-luh/

Light candles, pour out libations to Shamash from the cup and recite the following hymn to Shamash seven times while making the sign of respect over the oil (both arms out before you, elbows bent at an acute angle and palms forward)

O Shamash, judge of Heaven and Underworld, foremost one of the Annunaki!

O Shamash, judge of all the lands, Shamash, foremost and resplendent one!

You keep them in check, O Shamash, the judge.

You carry those from Above down to Below.

Those from Below up to Above.

May he bring up a ghost from the darkness for me!

May he put life back into the dead man’s limbs!

May he bring up the ghost of [spirit] to be put inside the figure!

I call upon you, O figure of figures!

May he who is within the figure answer me!

O Shamash, who opens the darkness!

Anoint both your eyelids and the figure using the ghost oil

Scry into the scrying surface, hold your scepter before you, wait for an image or voice  the spirit to appear while you recite the following

Who are you?

Who are you?

You who always seek out the good throat.

Whether evil spirit, evil Shedu, evil ghost, evil demon

Whether good spirit, good Shedu, good ghost, good demon

O evil ghost, O evil ghost

O good ghost, O good ghost

May he who is within the figure answer me!

Once you receive confirmation the spirit is there, command or question the spirit in whatever way you desire.

At the conclusion of the ritual recite the following hymn in the same way as before.

O Shamash, judge of Heaven and Underworld, foremost one of the Annunaki!

O Shamash, judge of all the lands, Shamash, foremost and resplendent one!

You keep them in check, O Shamash, the judge.

You carry those from Above down to Below.

Those from Below up to Above.

May he return the ghost to the darkness for me!

May he take life back from the dead man’s limbs!

May he remove the ghost of [spirit] from inside the figure!

May he who is within the figure no longer answer me!

O Shamash, who opens the darkness!

Perform the closing steps of the four winds invocation ritual.

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Spirits to Conjure

Immartu

Type: Wind of the western desert

Sphere: Fire

Appearance: chimeric figure composed of a man, lion, bull and eagle

Expertise: fire, evil, tirelessly brings devastation to the plains, brings death

Imsissa

Type: Wind of upright advice

Sphere: Earth

Appearance: chimeric figure composed of a man, lion, bull and eagle

Expertise: when mightily blowing splits open the broad land, bringing abundance

Imkurra

Type: Wind of the Shining Mountain

Sphere: Air

Appearance: chimeric figure composed of a man, lion, bull and eagle

Expertise: which has caused the rain above to rain down its lightning, makes a man’s body waste away

Imullu

Type: Wind of Forgetting

Sphere: Water

Appearance: chimeric figure composed of a man, lion, bull and eagle

Expertise: Primeval, Harmful to man, when it blows, dizzies people with dust, makes one’s heart happy

Gidim

Type: Sickness Demon

Sphere: Earth

Appearance: a ghost of a man

Expertise: causing sickness or harm

Igibarra

Type: demon scout

Sphere: Earth

Appearance: shadow figure

Expertise: spying

Udug

Type: unpleasant demon

Sphere: Earth

Appearance: a dark shadow, absence of light surrounding it, dripping poisonous claws, deafening voice

Expertise: It brings the target to tears and cannot be restrained, gives good advice

Galla

Type: seizing demon

Sphere: Earth

Appearance: goblin-like

Expertise: haul victims off to the underworld

Ziudsudra

Type: ghost of the man long of days

Sphere: Earth

Appearance: a man from ancient Mesopotamia

Expertise: teaches of the time before the flood

Líl

Type: wind demon

Sphere: Air

Appearance: a mighty wind, a ominous breeze, an incorporeal breath, a cedar scent

Expertise: haunting, blowing things around, bringing infection

Làmma

Type: female spirit of good fortune

Sphere: Sky

Appearance: a beautiful woman

Expertise: bringing good fortune, bringing luxury, giving good advice

Alad

Type: male protective spirit

Sphere: Sky

Appearance: a handsome man

Expertise: protection

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Sources Cited

Abusch, Tzvi. The Witchcraft Series Maqlû. SBL Press, 2015.

Finkel, Irving L. “Necromancy in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Archiv Für Orientforschung, 29/30, 1983, pp. 1–17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41661902.

Konstantinos. Summoning Spirits: the Art of Magical Evocation. Llewellyn Publications, 2009.

“SpTU 2, 020 [Ritual against Ghost].” Cams/Gkab, oracc.org/cams/gkab/P348625.

British Museum Collection Object reference number: WCO24417

Originally published in Peacock Goat Review Vol. 1 No. 5

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The energies of Mars are peculiar. On the surface they seem violent, aggressive and warlike, but beneath all that externalized vitriol is a core of control. An unfocused burst of energy rarely does any lasting damage but a directed strike carried out with pinpoint accuracy can be devastating with little effort.

On November 6th of last year, I performed a Mars initiation. Leading into the initiation I had a series of synchronicities surrounding Gevurah and the sphere of Mars. I became obsessed with the formula V.V.V.V.V. and everything it symbolized. I had a dream where I was pulled over by the police for some kind of headlight issue and then the next day I had a headlight issue while driving into work, which thanks to the dream I noticed before any police saw it. I also had a dream about being attacked by a Lynx. I also looked more deeply into my natal chart and realized my natal moon is in Scorpio, a sign heavily associated with the ancient Mesopotamian god Nergal. I also picked up a pair of pentacle earrings with little witch hat, athame and broom charms that hang from them.

I performed the initiation largely in my usual style; I took the rites proscribed in Rufus Opus’ Seven Spheres and added my layer of Sumerian flavour. I crafted a Layman centered around the Sumerian god of the planetary sphere of Mars, Nergal, and covered in Cuneiform. I invoked Nergal with a hymn in my best attempt at Sumerian while the soundtrack from the recent Doom remake blared in the background. (I’ve posted a set of instructions to perform the one I performed on my website for those interested. http://gnostictempleofinanna.org/nergal-initiation/)

Usually when I perform planetary initiations I don’t ask for anything specific, preferring to let the spirits give me whatever lesson they see fit, but this time was different. This time I asked for something specific; discipline. It was a very energizing experience and one which ended with Nergal appearing in my scrying surface (an obsidian crystal ball) which I drew afterward.

When I first told Aaron I was planning on performing a martial initiation I remember it was in the context of a conversation about my Scorpio Moon and he told me “This may be pretty intense for you.” Nergal is the ancient Mesopotamian god war, plague, death, and disease. He is also lord of the underworld second only to the goddess Ereshkigal, his consort. When I made this request, I expected this would play out in taking some kind of martial art course or having to face off with some kind of violent, destructive force. However, what came was more or less the opposite.

On the first day immediately following the initiation, I had my most productive day in months. I got so much done that I had been putting off doing. I felt compelled to accomplish everything I had been avoiding like I was being driven to the beat of a war drum. It was intense but not in the way I was expecting. It was like all the motivation that had been drained from me had been returned tenfold. Exactly five days after the initiation while driving home from work, I started smelling tobacco and at the same time a car started tailgating me with the right headlight missing. I started swearing at them and reciting a banishing ritual to get them to go away, then something hit me like a ton of bricks; this is the energies of Mars manifesting in my life and I was the one who summoned them; to struggle against them is stupid. I felt the need to apologise to Nergal for trying to banish him. Almost immediately afterward, the smell vanished and the car went around me and on its way.

Shortly after I became obsessed with Taoist magic and the I Ching. I felt driven to try to syncretize it with western modes of magick. It never really fit the way I was hoping it would but the experience led me to better understanding the elements in western modes of magic and especially geomancy which led to my article from the second issue of Peacock Goat Review entitled “Interrogating Geomancy”. Leading from this I picked up a copy of the Zohar and was immediately drawn to the section that covered the elemental correspondences behind the Binding of Isaac; water versus fire.

So how did all these components come together? A synthesis of elements. I slowly learned that these elements weren’t only external but internal and that most of my externalized struggles were but reflections of the internal struggle I was facing within. My childhood expectations of how I should be raised seemed to come from an innate sense of the practices of historical Celtic Druidry but my lived life experience of the western protestantism my parents practiced flew in the face of that. My childhood self was anticipating the arrival of some Merlin, some Gandalf, some wise old Druid that would take me under his wing and show me the ancient forgotten tome of wisdom teaching me the secrets behind everything Christianity had taught me. I was expecting the equivalent of the reveal that Santa Claus isn’t real but I never got it and this continued disappointment turned into bitterness and then anger and resentment. Worse, add to the mix the discrimination I faced for being queer and things came to a disgusting boil.

Then the point was driven home in a form I wasn’t ready to handle and my need to finally face my internal battle was brought to bear; my paternal grandfather died. This is something I expounded upon in greater detail in my article in the previous edition of the Peacock Goat Review entitled “Don’t You Forget About Your Friend Death” so I won’t retread that ground here.

This working through my internal struggle came to a head when I purchased a copy of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s How to Live collection of books. His book on How to Fight stood out to me and I was drawn to it. It features a pair of boxing gloves on the cover and a red spine; it practically screamed Martial energy. I was expecting a book on activism, but despite the cover the book actually centers around finding the seeds of anger within and caring for them so that they turn into seeds of peace. There was one particular passage that hit me like a ton of bricks

“Your anger is the wounded child in you.”

When I read that, it was like the secrets of my lifelong struggle with my upbringing was revealed to me and I finally figured out how to loosen my grip and let go of all the hurt I had been holding onto. It broke me and I cried for over an hour. It was the most cathartic cry I think I have ever experienced and it felt wonderful. It was like I had been holding onto the end of a dagger of ice since I was a child and when I finally let go it melted in my hands taking all the pain away with a cool stream of water.

Since then I’ve been slowly sorting through all the pieces of myself and my ideas through a new lense. I’ve slowly come to realize that all the problems I had with Christianity had less to do with its teachings and more to do with the arrogance with which I was beat over the head with them as a child. At the core of their motivation was a number of mistranslations and misunderstandings of the source text. They didn’t harm me out of malice, they harmed me out of ignorance. Why should I hold onto that wound and allow it to continuously cause me pain when everything that caused it hasn’t been a part of my life in decades? Why should I allow the past to keep me from being able to have a relationship with my living relatives now?

Beyond that, I’ve finally let go of my struggles to find my identity. I no longer feel the need to cloak myself in a guise of beliefs imposed by this or that system in rebellion of the one I was raised in. I’m no longer fighting that system. It’s a part of who I am but it doesn’t define me. Everything is but a piece of the puzzle and if the pieces are busy fighting each other the picture will never be built. I am simply a witch; I don’t need to further define that to shove labels on it or rearrange things to fit some paradigm. The world itself is a paradigm. Nature is a paradigm. My own personality is a paradigm. It is enough on its own. It’s okay to simply be. I already have all of the conditions I need to be happy. I no longer feel the need to shove who I am into other people’s faces or wear it like a cloak to show the world who I am. I know who I am. I know what I’m doing and why. I no longer have to pretend not to care what they think as a defense mechanism, I simply have grown disinterested in it. I know my path and I’m going to walk it because it is compelling to me. I don’t need to define it in opposition to another one, their path may well coincide with mine and that’s fine too. I go this way because it’s the way I want to go. I have given up my scorpionic need for defiance and attack; my scorpion has transformed into an eagle.

Yesterday I finally took the final step in my healing process; I sent my dad an olive branch in the form of a translation of the New Testament which as been translated to be as close to the original text as possible. On the one hand it’s a symbol of my having finally let the pain and anger of my past go; I’ve stopped hating the Christianity I was raised on. On another hand it’s an effort of giving my dad a gift I think he will actually appreciate and use. Finally though, it’s an attempt at trying to rebuild the bridges that were burned in the past and attempt at rekindling the close relationship we had when I was young by giving us something to connect over.

I expect it to be delivered tomorrow. Tonight I intend on performing a Uranus initiation. To me, Uranus represents the wizard-mentor archetype I so desperately sought as a child and it feels like the next step in this journey. Time will tell where this leads but for now I am happy with where I a

Originally published in Peacock Goat Review Vol. 1 No. 5

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An ancient Mesopotamian style headless rite.

Materials:

• Alter
• Spring water
• Soapwort
• Rosette amulet
• Shugurra crown
• Dagger/Knife
• Wheat beer libation
• Incense (any)

Place your alter to the East.

Preparing the consecrated water

Prepare consecrated water by mixing spring water with diced soapwort.

Place the water on your alter, make the orans sign facing your alter and recite:

Oh pure plants grown in a pure place, sprouting from the water of the Abzu!

O soapwort, pure plant, who’s roots grew in pure earth and branches touched holy sky!

Enki, Lord of the Abzu, will now purify and cleanse this in perpetration for holy ritual!

Damgalnunna, Queen of the Abzu, will now purify and cleanse this in perpetration for holy ritual!

May evil speech stand aside!

Wear a rosette amulet as a necklace.

Light incense and sprinkle area with consecrated water.

Enenuru formula

Use everywhere you see en₂-e₂-nu-ru

Touch your forehead and say using your great voice:

en₂

Touch your solar plexus and say using your great voice:

e₂

Touch your right shoulder and say using your great voice:

nu

Touch you left shoulder and say using your great voice:

ru

The four winds invocation

Draw your dagger

Face the South, use your dagger to draw a pentagram in the air in front of you starting from the bottom point, and recite using your great voice:

ĝe₂₆-nu!
im-u₁₈-lu-ke₄ ĝe₂₆-nu!
a ^dlammař-ke₄ ĝe₂₆-nu!
im-ke₄ ùru-m zur!

Face the West, use your dagger to draw a pentagram in the air in front of you starting from the left point, and recite using your great voice:

ĝe₂₆-nu!
im-mar-tu-ke₄ ĝe₂₆-nu!
izi ^dalad-ke₄ ĝe₂₆-nu!
im-ke₄ ùru-m zur!

Face the North, use your dagger to draw a pentagram in the air in front of you starting from the upper point, and recite using your great voice:

ĝe₂₆-nu!
im-si-sá-ke₄ ĝe₂₆-nu!
ki ^dlammař-ke₄ ĝe₂₆-nu!
im-ke₄ ùru-m zur!

Face the East, your dagger to draw a pentagram in the air in front of you starting from the right point, and recite using your great voice:

ĝe₂₆-nu!
im-sa1₂-ti-um-ke₄ ĝe₂₆-nu!
líl ^dalad-ke₄ ĝe₂₆-nu!
im-ke₄ ùru-m zur!

Face the south and recite the following:

^dlammař-ke₄ igi ĝe!
^dlammař-ke₄ igi-gal ĝe!
^dalad-ke₄ zag ĝe!
^dalad-ke₄ zag-gal ĝe!
da₅ ĝe mul gíbil!
da₅ ĝe dingir!
dingir za-me!

Exorcism formula

Face the North, put on the shugurra crown, make the orans sign and recite:

en₂-e₂-nu-ru

I invoke you, Weila, God with intelligence;
You who’s flesh formed the world;
You who’s blood gave life to the earth;

I call upon you oh awesome and invisible god who’s gidim₂ is Ala;

Hear me, ^dab-zu ^dengir ^dnamma ^dan ^dki ^dgeshtu-e ^daw-ilu ^dweila
Subject to me all gidim₂, so that every gidim₂, whether líl or dug₄, of ki
or of kur, on bar-rim₄ or in ab, and every nam-šub and uš₁₁ might be
obedient to me.

Deliver me from all restraining gidim₂ and uš₁₁.

en₂-e₂-nu-ru

Hear me, ^dgir-unug-gal  ^dne-ti ^ddumu-zid ^dereš-ki-gal ^dĝeštin-an-na-še₃ ^dutu

I have called upon you, Gods of Night;

With you I have called upon Night, the Veiled Bride
I have called on Twilight, Midnight and Dawn;

Hear me, ^dab-zu ^dengir ^dnamma ^dan ^dki ^dgeshtu-e ^daw-ilu ^dweila
Subject to me all gidim₂, so that every gidim₂, whether líl or dug₄, of ki
or of kur, on bar-rim₄ or in ab, and every nam-šub and uš₁₁ might be
obedient to me.

Deliver me from all restraining gidim₂ and uš₁₁.

en₂-e₂-nu-ru

Hear me, ^dea ^dnusku ^dasri-lú-du₁₀ ^den-ki ^dgira ^dšamaš ^dištar-šu ^dmarduk

O Asari, bestower of planting, founder of sowing,
Creator of grain and plants, who caused the green herb to spring up!
O Asaru-alim, who is revered in the house of counsel, who abounds in counsel,
The gods paid homage, fear took hold upon them!
O Asaru-alim-nuna, the mighty one, the light of the father who begat him,
Who directs the decrees of An, Ninurta, and Enki!
He was their patron, he ordained their offices;
He, whose provision is abundance, goes forth!
Tutu is he who created them anew;

I am your prophet to whom you have transmitted your mysteries;

the whole quintessence of sorcery!

Hear me, ^dab-zu ^dengir ^dnamma ^dan ^dki ^dgeshtu-e ^daw-ilu ^dweila
Subject to me all gidim₂, so that every gidim₂, whether líl or dug₄, of ki
or of kur, on bar-rim₄ or in ab, and every nam-šub and uš₁₁ might be
obedient to me.

Deliver me from all restraining gidim₂ and uš₁₁.

en₂-e₂-nu-ru

O ^dki, ^dki, yes ^dki!

^dgiš-gim₂-maš master of your curses, to whom zi-ud-su₃-ra₂ revealed his wisdom;

What you have ensourced, I know it!

What I have ensourced; you do not know it!

Hear me, for I am the messenger of King ^dbil-ga-maš,
which is your true name, handed down to the en of ^uruunug.

Hear me, ^dab-zu ^dengir ^dnamma ^dan ^dki ^dgeshtu-e ^daw-ilu ^dweila
Subject to me all gidim₂, so that every gidim₂, whether líl or dug₄, of ki
or of kur, on bar-rim₄ or in ab, and every nam-šub and uš₁₁ might be
obedient to me.

Deliver me from all restraining gidim₂ and uš₁₁.

en₂-e₂-nu-ru

Hear me, ^dnin-din-ug-ga ^dnin-a-ha-qud-du ^mulkak-si-šá ^dgibil ^dsȋn
I am headless Weila, with sight in my feet;
I am Gibil, the mighty one who possesses primeval fire;
I am Utu, who hates the fact that unjust deeds are done in the world;
I am Ninurta, who holds the mighty thunderbolt;
I am Enlil, who’s sweat falls upon the earth as rain so that life can begin;
I am Enki, who’s mouth speaks great wisdom;
I am Inanna, who begets and destroys;
I am Dumuzid, the consort of the queen of heaven;
I am Ningizada, the entwining of serpents;

God, King, Master, Prince, empower my soul!

Quickly, quickly, o su-kal of ^dan!
Come forth and follow.

Face the south and recite the following:

^dlammař-ke₄ za-mi igi ĝe!
^dlammař-ke₄ za-mi igi-gal ĝe!
^dalad-ke₄ za-mi zag ĝe!
^dalad-ke₄ za-mi zag-gal ĝe!
ma₄ ĝe mul gíbil!
ma₄ ĝe dingir!
dingir za-me!

Pour out a libation of wheat beer.

*A note on pronunciation: the superscripts represents honorifics which are written to denote specific kinds of proper nouns, and should not be pronounced. The subscript numbers denote which variant of the sign is used and is added for scribal purposes and also should not be pronounced.

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Sources Cited

“Sumerian Language.” The Language Gulper, languagesgulper.com/eng/Sumerian_language.html.

Sumerian Lexicon Search, sumer.grazhdani.eu/index.php.

Abusch, Tzvi. The Witchcraft Series Maqlû. Soc. of Biblical Literature, 2015.

Black, Jeremy. The Literature of Ancient Sumer. Lightning Source, 2004.

King, Leonard William. “The Seven Tablets of Creation.” Internet Sacred Text Archive, www.sacred-texts.com/ane/stc/stc10.htm.

Shoemaker, David G. Living Thelema: a Practical Guide to Attainment in Aleister Crowley’s System of Magick. Anima Solis Books, 2013.

“The Four Winds/ Four Corners .” Enenuru, enenuru.net/html/misc/fourwinds.htm.

“The Headless Rite.” The Digital Ambler, 3 Mar. 2018, digitalambler.com/rituals/classical-hermetic-rituals/the-headless-rite/.

White, Gordon. Chaos Protocols – Magical Techniques for Navigating the New Economic Reality. Llewellyn Publications,U.s., 2016.

Originally published in Peacock Goat Review Vol. 1 No. 4

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This is likely going to be the hardest article I’ll ever write. I chose the topic at the beginning of the month. Neptune began its transit into Sextile Natal Uranus in my chart and I suddenly found myself profoundly interested in unordinary states of consciousness. This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself looking into this topic but this time it took a turn I wasn’t expecting. For a good week or so I listened to nothing but Terence McKenna lectures. There are two which really stood out to me; one where he talked about sharing DMT with shamans and their reaction to it and the beings which Terrence named the machine elves, and also one concerning the topic of insanity. These two lectures became the catalyst for the line of thinking that ultimately ballooned out into this article. I realized that his description of the DMT experience has some interesting parallels with Gilgamesh’s descent into the netherworld from Mesopotamian mythology and I decided I was going to make this the topic of my article. However, I had no idea just how personal this topic was about to become.


    The title of this article comes from a song by the band Ghost entitled Pro Memoria. In many ways, death has become a near constant companion in my life over the past 3 years and in a lot of ways my magical path has been created and shaped by it. April 1st, 2015; that date will forever be stained with the emotional scars it left on my life. That was the day my mother died and my world was changed forever. My mother and I never had an ideal relationship. She was a Christian fundamentalist and I was born a rebel. We were both equally stubborn and single-minded and this meant we often argued. It isn’t incorrect to say that a large portion of my childhood was shaped primarily by this adversarial relationship. I saw myself as being a catalyst for everything she was against. In some ways that proved more true that either of us could know. Still; despite all this she was also my anchor. When I needed advice, she was there. When I needed help, she was there. When I just needed a shoulder to cry on; she was there…until she wasn’t. It was a long, slow path down that road.


She had been battling cancer for something around seven years before she finally met the hooded skeleton in the road and that time was like a slow rollercoaster ride into hell. Every time it seemed like she was almost cured and the cancer stopped showing up on screenings; it would come back and shatter our hopes and dreams again. It was like it was taking some kind of sick pleasure in messing with our expectations. Then one day I visited my mother in the hospital. I generally tried to avoid going to the hospital; seeing my mother all hooked up to machines and such was something I had a hard time handling. Partially because I’ve always been incredibly squeamish, and partially because I wasn’t ready to face the cold reality of my mother’s mortality. For whatever reason I made a point of going and I’m glad I did because the conversation we had is something that I will forever hold in my heart and all the sour and bitter notes it carries with it.


That day my mother had had another surgery. She’d had many by this point and every time they told us it was life or death but every time she had pulled through so it had become rather routine. I came into the hospital room and found my childhood friend there visiting with her too. We talked a bit and caught up some and after awhile she went home and it was just my mother and I in that room. I still remember all the details like it was yesterday. The horrible beeping of the heart monitor. The wind on the huge glass windows at the side of the room. The cars that passed on the street below as you looked out it, the disquieting dull panic from the hallway outside as nurses rushed from one patient to the next.


I still remember the voice of the nurse that brought my mom her last real meal. I didn’t see her face as I was busy staring out the window. I don’t like looking into people’s faces under good circumstances but she was also there to tend to the equipment that was hooked to the machine. She had a cheerful attitude and tried to mask her emotions but something in the waver in her voice told me what I and I think my mother already knew; the surgery had failed and this was it, cancer had won.


We didn’t know right away and in that time while my mom was eating that crummy hospital food that would ultimately be the last thing she ever tasted (Why do they make hospital food so horrible? Shouldn’t people’s last meals be something pleasant?) we had a conversation that would serve as a kind of bookend to this chapter of my life. She told me she wasn’t afraid to die but that she didn’t want to leave my sister and I behind. It was a hard conversation to have and I wanted to ask so much more; I wanted to know so much more but it broke me and I left somewhat prematurely soon after.


While this wasn’t the last time I spoke with her, it was the last time I really felt like she was my mother. After that, she was there but fading and it was like she wasn’t the same person anymore; like her soul was slowly leaking out of her body until there was nothing left and she lost consciousness. Then like the slow changeover of fall into winter which only becomes obvious at the first snowfall I didn’t have a mother anymore.


Since then I’ve lost both of my maternal grandparents, I’ve lost my great uncle who in many ways was like a third grandfather to me, another uncle and I’ve lost both of my paternal grandparents. My grandfather’s funeral was six days ago as of the writing of this article.


I took up the mantle of writing about death and like clockwork death raised her ugly hand and took another one. At my grandfather’s funeral my uncle-in-law told me something that’s echoed in my mind ever since he told me.


“He chose this, in a way.”


In ways I can’t even begin to describe coherently this one seemingly simple statement has turned into both the biggest weight on my recovery from this grief and also the catalyst for everything I’ve slowly come to realize over these past two weeks:


I’m slowly becoming a faceless ghost in reverse; and it’s making me wise.


In the Sumerian religion, one way someone becomes a faceless ghost is for them to be buried improperly and their living relatives forget them. Sumer was a society that placed a great deal of importance on ancestor worship. Giving food and drink offerings to your dead ancestors was seen as a way to honor them and give them a more pleasant time in the netherworld. The city of the dead was a rather unpleasant place where they are given “clay for food and dust for drink”, a description given often in myths concerning the land of the dead. In the Sumerian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s constant companion, enters the underworld on his behalf in order to retrieve something that was lost. When he returns Gilgamesh asks him about the fates of the various people who live there.


Lines 266-267

“Did you see him who had seven sons?”

“I saw him.”

“How does he fare?”

“As a companion of the gods, he sits on a throne and listens to judgements.”


Lines 292-293

“Did you see the spirit of him who has no funerary offerings?”

“I saw him.”

“How does he fare?”

“He eats the scraps and the crumbs…tossed out in the street.”


By this account my grandfather is like him who had seven sons and he is likely sitting on a throne right now listening to judgements as a companion of the gods.


In any case, I find myself slowly becoming like him who has no funerary offerings; one by one I’m finding myself all alone in this world. I’m becoming faceless. I am becoming no face. I am slowly becoming like a forgotten ancestor in reverse; not as one of the dead but as one of the living. In many ways this has been the realization of my greatest fear, but it has given me the gift of perspective. If there’s one solace in becoming death’s friend, it is that you stop fearing her. I know now that when she arrives to cart me off into the land of the dead I can go with her gladly.


Still beyond that, it has given me the gift of being able to stare at her face as my own. Early in my magical path I had an experience. I gazed into a darkened bathroom mirror and like a scrying surface it showed me what was hidden only instead of seeing a spirit or some hidden phantom I saw myself as a corpse; as the undead visage of death herself. It is an image forever burned into my memory like some kind of intellectual retinal scarring. It is something I’ve had to integrate into myself in order to move passed. I have become like death. I have destroyed worlds and shattered dreams.


This perspective has emboldened me to probe the depths of the underworld as one who calls it my home and as such I have dug up some very interesting parallels not just between the image of the underworld in the mesopotamian sources and the DMT experience, but also in the image within so many paths throughout the world.


When a person dies, the sumerian sources say that their soul is split into three pieces; the breath of life, the water of life, and the gidim. The breath of life returns to the sky under the domain of the god Enlil and the goddess Ninlil as one of the Lil; wind spirits which are often depicted as birds and can be thought of as sylphs; the spirits of the air.


The water of life…we don’t really know. Unfortunately this part of the text has been lost. Presumably it returns the the Abzu, the underground freshwater spring which also serves as the well of souls. This is my best guess based on the available information.


The gidim is the egoic part of the personality. It could be called the shadow or the shade. It is carried off into the netherworld by the galla demons. Their name literally means “seizer” and they are described as having claws that one can’t easily escape from. For whatever reason I’ve pictured them as looking like the Hopkinsville Goblins though they function not unlike dwarves; the spirits of the deep earth. This is the part of the soul where your consciousness resides and this is the one the Sumerians concerned themselves with when it came to their ideas of the afterlife. They drag your gidim into the underworld through the passage of a giant tunnel which runs so deep you can’t see a light at its end until you are most of the way through it. Gilgamesh only makes it through by passing without stopping so he knows he’s still going the right direction. Once they enter the underworld they must cross a river called the Hubur by catching the ferry which is manned by Si-lu-igi. In the Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, he is called Urshanabi and he spends his free time collecting an as-of-yet untranslated type of snakes in the forest. This has an interesting parallel within Greek mythology in the river Styx and Kharon, its ferryman. Once across, one enters a kind of waiting area before the gates of the city of the dead. It is here that Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim, the hero of the Babylonian flood myth, who tells him he can’t go any further as one of the living and tells him his story as a sort of consolation prize to bring back to the world of the living.


This is where Gilgamesh’s descent ends however other mesopotamian myths take this concept further. In the story of Inanna’s descent this is precisely where it picks up. At the gates of the city she meets Neti, the gatekeeper, who she beseeches to allow her entry. He warns her that this is a path from which she cannot return. He is instructed by Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld, to let her through but to deal with her according to the ancient decree and so he does. At each gate he strips her of one item of clothing and lets her pass. She goes through seven gates and is then presented before Ereshkigal completely naked and she is judged.


This has some very important symbolism with direct parallels in both the DMT experience, in various magical traditions and in occult initiation.


Firstly, Taoism too teaches that at death the 3 parts of the soul separate and go their separate ways. In Taoism it is the Hun “cloud soul”, the Po “white soul” (the ghost) and the yang energy. The Yang energy disperses into the world around. The Hun returns to the heavens. The Po must descend into the underworld and release all of the yin energy it has penned up before it can ascend again and the cycle of life renew.


Beyond that, in Tibetan buddhism, it is taught that at death the soul must face a series of lights and depending on their karma will either be allowed to pass into Buddahood or be reincarnated into one of the six realms or “bardos”. Each stage represents a layer of stripping away of one’s egoic personality.


In the DMT experience as described by Terence McKenna, the experiencer first must breach the threshold of DMT needed to obtain a state called “breakthrough”. Once achieved, they find themselves traveling as if sucked violently through a long tunnel dumping them into a room full of bouncing spirits which has been nicknamed the “waiting room” who are excited to see them and happy to interact and show of neat tricks which Terrence called “machine elves”. For those who’ve followed up to this point you should already start to see strikingly similar geography to Gilgamesh’s descent though in a slightly different order; traveling across a threshold, passing through a tunnel and arriving in a waiting area. Where things get really interesting is when you consider what the shamen told Terence McKenna what they thought the spirits where; ancestors. Where Gilgamesh met Utnapishtim, the ancestor of his people, they met spirits they identified as their ancestors.


So now onto the occult significance. Firstly, Gilgamesh must first descend into the underworld by way of the tunnel. It takes him twelve leagues of walking before he reaches the other side. By the time this version of the story was written, the twelve signs of the zodiac had been settled upon by the Babylonian astrologers. Twelve was a sacred number in Mesopotamian culture at the time. They used a base 60 number system and 12 is one fifth of sixty which was a convenient fraction which is actually the reason our clocks have 12 hours but 60 seconds and 60 minutes. In any case, if we think of this in occult terms then we can think of it as the first astrological year of our initiation. In my case it represented slowly going through a dark night of the soul which only seemed to get darker and more despairing the further I went until I was back in the same sign I started in; Cancer, the most horribly named of the signs, where I met a girl I fell in love with.


Next, when Gilgamesh crossed the Hubur, he had smashed Utnapishtim’s typical mode of transportation so he made Gilgamesh create twelve poles to use to push him across. and think of using the twelve signs of the zodiac to push us along in our journey this starts to make a certain level of symbolic sense. Double this by the idea that we must face the twelve again then this sees a kind of secondary significance as the second year of initiation. We make tools, we use those tools to help us cross to the other side, but ultimately we must leave those tools behind. In my case, it wasn’t a tool I left behind but a person; It meant breaking up with that girl I had fallen in love with because I came to realize the relationship was destroying both of us.


Then we reach the shore and we are met with our ancestors. For me this came in the form of understanding my past and how all these various pieces came together to make me who I am. The circumstances of my birth, my parentage, my family, my heritage, my culture, my upbringing, my natural ideas about the world, my experiences, who I fell in love with, what I was interested in; all of everything that makes up the parts of my identity.

But facing it isn’t enough; we have to let it die. We have to let our ego die in order to pass. You can’t enter the land of the dead as one of the living. For me, it meant giving up everything I had built up around me defining who I was. I had to question everything and everyone I held dear. This ultimately meant leaving that relationship behind. One by one, gate by gate, sphere of initiation after sphere of initiation, I left the pieces of my ego behind me. It’s at these gates, at these spheres, that most people mistakenly think their initiation began, but the process started way before you perform your first ritual. The ritual comes more as an inevitable conclusion of where you’ve been than an actual conscious decision, though you might convince yourself otherwise. At the bottom of this cycle, I found myself naked, without form, faceless, before the incarnation of both death and birth herself, as a formless consciousness at the bottom of a vast abyss.


But death isn’t the end of the book, it’s only the end of the chapter. The next part of the descent of Inanna is that the spirits came, sent by Enki, the goat, lord of the waters of life, (which is also a Sumerian euphamism for semen) and revived her. She was given the tablet of the knowledge of the land of the dead. She understood death, she understood the spirit world. Then she ascended once more and was given her items of clothing back one by one until she emerges fully clothed but with a newfound wisdom gained by her experiences. In the same way, we must reconstruct our egoic consciousness one piece at a time from the inside-out in order to rebuild ourselves into the fully actualized spiritual being we are meant to become.


But like everything that still isn’t the end. Inanna’s story is part of what’s called in mythology a “cycle”. It was represented ritualistically in mesopotamia as a part of the rites for the coming of the seasons. It was repeated in public performances every year as the seasons changed. In the same way too, our cycle continues. One initiation isn’t the end, it’s only the first step on to the next, over and over, climbing the ladder of initiation, of epiphany, of seeing further and further into the heavens, seeing out into eternity. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, but you have to keep walking to go on and when you get to the end, you come back home and start preparations for your next. Stagnation is a fate worse than death. Change is the lingua franca of life itself; perpetual dance.


I’ll end this the same way it began; with the lyrics of a song.


And just consider what we do everyday. Dances. The human dance. The flower dance. The bee dance. The giraffe dance. Do something rhythmic. Dance, sing, play games. There’s a sudden wonderful rhythm. Some people like to knit. Others just like to breathe! Now you see, our very existence is a rhythm. Waking, sleeping, eating, and moving. And that’s all we’re doing! And just consider what we do everyday. What’s it all about? Does it really mean anything, Does it go anywhere? Dances.

~from “Do Something Rhythmic”by Pogo

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Sources Cited

Black, Jeremy, et al. The Literature of Ancient Sumer. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Dalley, Stephanie. Myths from Mesopotamia Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford University Press, 2008.