The Giant by the Black Gate
The Cult of the Raven King, 1
A note:
Hey.
There’s a story — or a history, I guess — that I really need to tell. But the way I tell it will seem a bit strange for some of you, especially if you’re new to my writing. On the other hand, if you’ve read my work for a long time, you’ll probably be quite happy I’m finally getting around to telling this.
I’ll need to tell it over several essays, but they’re not going to read like essays at all. In fact, they might even feel a bit like fiction. You can certainly read them that way, if you like, and I won’t take the slightest offense at that.
I’m calling this series “The Cult of the Raven King,” and you’ll see why, eventually. And there’s now a new tab on my substack home page where these will be collected so you can find them. And if it’s all too strange for you, but you really like my other writing, you’ll know which is which that way as well.
But if you really like magic and want to learn more, or at least want to learn how I do it, you’ll probably really enjoy the telling.
I know I will.
And PS: These essays will be paywalled, but you can get a forever 25% discount on yearly subscriptions from now until the end of October. Use this button for that:
Love,
—Rhyd
I.
There are four years of my life, from about 2014 to 2017, which don’t really make a lot of sense to me. Or, better said, they make a lot of sense, or even more accurately are a lot of sense, but that sense cannot be easily translated into thought.
But that’s anyway how all senses work. We sense things all the time — through our skin, our tongues, our nose, our ears, and our eyes — and then try to translate what those sensations mean. We’re always interpreting, and translating, and usually getting things right. Often enough, though, we get things quite wrong.
As I wrote in A People’s Guide to Tarot:
… We modern people consider our brain to be the center of our mind and all of our thinking, like it’s the master of the body rather than just some part of it. But the brain isn’t a sense organ. Instead, its role is to interpret all the senses coming in to it, to decide what they mean, and then to make decisions based on those interpretations.
Usually, the brain gets things right. Sometimes, it gets things very, very wrong. For instance, anxiety is often the brain interpreting sensations incorrectly. Maybe you’re tired or hungry or thirsty, but the brain misses what is actually happening and then decides that everyone hates you or that something really bad is going to happen.
That’s from the first chapter, where I also explain the relationship between Tarot and the imaginal. The imaginal is quite relevant to those years to which I referred, so I’ll quote a bit more.
“[The imaginal is] a kind of faculty or sense we humans have, somewhere between reason and the unconscious. Imagination is one way that we use this faculty, but it’s not the only way. It’s a bit like how doing math in your head is a kind of thinking, but it’s not the only kind of thinking we do.
…you can think of the imaginal as the knowledge sense of the soul (if you believe in such a thing) or the unconscious. And this knowledge sense is able to perceive some things that other senses (like touch) cannot. That doesn’t mean it’s a “higher” or “better” kind of sense. Touch tells you things that taste cannot, while taste can give you information that touch never can. The senses are all different, with each one being really good for some kinds of knowledge and not good for others.
What actually happened during those years defines everything I am, everything I’ve become, and everything I will be more than any other part of my life. But I don’t write about it much anymore. It all sounds pretty crazy when I try to narrate it, because nothing’s really linear. Oh, and also, completely “impossible” things happened, the kind of stuff that even most fantasy fiction writers shy away from because it’s just a bit too much.
But yesterday, walking by a statue, one of the things that started all this happened again, and I got a rather stern look from someone (or if you prefer, a Someone) who wanted to make sure I remembered what I promised I’d do. And I think writing about it is part of how I can make good on that promise, so I’ll try.
Recently, I wrote that one of the reasons occultists and academics use really obscure language in their writing is to sound much more intelligent than they are. That’s absolutely true, but it’s not the only reason. Sometimes, the things they are trying to describe would sound quite crazy if they put it in common language.
Sometimes, that’s because it’s actually crazy. But the problem with crazy is that it doesn’t also mean “untrue.” Nuclear weapons are pretty crazy when you think about them. So are transatlantic flights. Most of the technology moderns use now is based upon completely insane theories which nevertheless describe things accurately enough to manifest wonders and horrors alike.
Most of what I’ll describe to you is also really crazy, and I won’t try to apologize for this. Also, I won’t bother trying to obscure things, because I trust you enough to trust me. Hopefully you’ve read enough of what else I’ve written to know I’m not completely unhinged. And if not, maybe you’ll enjoy the read anyway.
II.
I’ll start with that statue yesterday. Yesterday, I got on a train to Trier, a really short ride from a nearby station. Trier’s an ancient city, first a Celtic oppidum and then later a Roman citadel called Augusta Treverorum (the City of Augustus among the Treveri). It’s the oldest continuously inhabited city in Germany, and bits of its Roman past are everywhere, including its famous Porta Nigra, the “Black Gate.”
I was sitting on the steps of the courtyard by the Porta Nigra yesterday, listening to someone playing one of those public pianos that became quite popular in Europe ten years ago. They place these in train stations and in city centers, and inevitably someone plays them, and this guy was pretty good.
I go to Trier when I need something. I go by myself, and usually just sit somewhere for a few hours and then leave again. I usually pretend like that something I need is in a shop, and so I enter those shops and sometimes buy something. But those somethings are never the something that I needed. They’re anyway always the same things each time — a bottle of mineral water, a pack of the cigarettes I used to smoke in the US but cannot get in Luxembourg, and a lamb kebab.
That’s never what I’m actually there for, but I get them anyway.
What I’m actually there for is the something you get when someone wants your attention and makes efforts to get it. In fact, it’s not ever true to say I go to Trier, but more accurately that I’m pulled to Trier, or invited, or summoned. And so I go, and something — or someone — tells me or shows me something. Then I leave, and I hopefully remember all of this in the weeks afterward.
This time, it was a giant who wanted my attention.