Earthing The Tunnels of Set

© Linda Falorio 1989

 

An account of Magickal Workings undertaken from July 1983 through February 1988, based upon Nightside of Eden, by Kenneth Grant, and upon Liber CCXXXI, "The Genii of the 22 Scales of the Serpent and of the Qliphoth," by Aleister Crowley.

Incense of Abramelin billowed from the brazier in thick ropes of pungent smoke, creating of our simple hill top camp in the wilderness of central Ohio the precinct of an ancient temple, deepening the night with a familiar aura of sacredness. Lightning flashed on the near horizon. Howling, drumming, chanting from the distant bonfire drifted to us, evoked that strangely chthonic, highly charged emotional atmosphere so characteristic of Lammas -- Feast of Set -- celebration of the heliacal rising of the Dog-Star Sothis-Sirius.

The rite to be performed by candlelight within the confines of this our temple was designed to ride upon these waves of force, to catch the shrieking currents raised in smoke and flame, in pouring, sooted sweat and breathless dancing; to propel us into strange dimensions, and catalyze our Wills. Anxiety, the rising nervous expectation that always heralds the imminence of those extra-dimensional forces we would that night invoke, and the ultimate power of our magick, signaled our beginning the elaborate web of tantra, woven of souls, lives, bodies, and raw energy of flesh and mind-stuff. At that point of ecstasy which rides the very edge of consciousness, like reckless cliff-divers, we flung ourselves into those nether-dimensions where there are no paths, but only gateways; our souls propelled into a viscous darkness in which we found ourselves embedded, and through which flowed to us all images, all emotions, all things existent that had ever been or might come to be in some far and unknown future.

Thus we began our exploration/ reification of the Sethian Tunnels, that dark repository of primordial instincts, of root primitive atavisms, of alien awarenesses, and strange adumbrations of far future selves. Filled with terror, filled with power, this is our fearful birth right. Unacknowledged and unclaimed, it is yet full of lethal fascination, for in backward turning ever lies the possibility of becoming "other" — more than human.

We threw ourselves into exploration of the Nightside of consciousness, eager to experience the backside of the Tree of Life, to crawl into those interdimensional wormholes that undermine prosaic Dayside reality. The Tunnels of Set: "a network of dream cells in the subconscious mind," reached by projecting consciousness through Daäth, "the gateway of the manifestation of non-manifestation" (Kenneth Grant, Nightside of Eden). Daäth, false Sephira, throat chakra, connected weirdly to the "lower throat" — phallus/kteis — glyphed by Yesod. In our subsequent workings, this identity - polarity returned again and yet again to our awarenesses, assuming considerable importance in the efficacy of our tantras.

Leapers together of the nether regions of the Tree, we would agree by gut reaction on which Tunnel to explore. Sona N'yl would then begin to paint the Tunnel's yantra. Arctor would vibrate its mantra over and over within his mind in the joined ecstasy of tantra. And we waited for the power to come through, surrendering ego-control to an inherent, inescapable factor of unpredictability. Some Tunnels came through like lightning, others had to be coddled and coaxed. Polarities were reversed, so that while Sona N'yl qabalized and read like mad, Arctor patiently allowed himself to become the vehicle of magnetizing and earthing the force.

Tantra was practiced on all possible levels. Each thought, act, event, image, emotion, person, situation presented to awareness, whether spiritual or mundane, global or highly personal, became part of that tunnel's hell broth.

We found it necessary to acquire a house to give privacy and clear access to earth energies, and access to the stars — a house which later revealed itself it to be a launching point for interstellar/ trans-dimensional travelers, the Moa of long lost Lemuria. Dagdagiel induced us to gorge on oysters to get into the proper spirit; and for Zamradiel, we crawled deep into an ancient initiatory cave, equipped with flashlights and hardhats. We were introduced to the deep mysteries of Taoist "dual cultivation" with Saksaksalim; while certain bisexual aspects of A'ano'nin brought us Maya Xenophilous Dorje-Cat, a true hermaphrodite (hermaphrocat?), possessing both male and female generative organs.

Tzuflifu brought a worldwide drought and heat wave. The very day it was "deactivated" and Malkunofat begun, there were torrential rains and floods. Rajneeshpuram fell when we worked Uriens. No one within our circle was immune, one friend landing the role of "Miguel" in George Romero's Day of the Dead when we worked Thantifaxath. While Hemethterith brought astrology clients flocking to the door.

To short-circuit dayside linear consciousness and left-brain structuring of the experiment, no formal journals were kept, nor are there records of the random order in which the Tunnels were explored, as one by one the Tunnel reifications emerged upon their canvases by the hand of Sona N'yl, eventually to be reproduced in card format as The Shadow Tarot. When the Tunnels (and explorers) had been exhausted, a chapbook was compiled as a verbal travelogue, describing the scenery and landscape of the psychic spaces previously little explored, mapping cogent symbols, suggesting formulae to work, and powers to be gained, and warning of symptoms of unbalanced energies relating to each Tunnel's psychic web.

We found power in the realm of the Ancient Ones, those great cosmological beings existent before time, who yet lurk in those interdimensional spaces between universes, waiting for the call to their awakening, ready to devour. By accessing, and redefining within our human psyches these remote geographies of the Soul, we found power to remake ourselves. We emerged from 55 months of tunneling laden with treasures, found ourselves more rich than when first we embarked upon these nether explorations.

Yet each individual leaves their own unique footprint in the desert sands of the Abyss, in their crossing to the City of the Pyramids under the Night of Pan. And so there are many Tunnel images yet to be earthed, more maps, new angles, fresh descriptions of the psychic space yet to be wrought before we, the human race, succeed in bringing about a willed mutation of the species that will propel us to the Comity of Stars.

"For [man] is of the Blood of the Ancient Ones, but has the Spirit of the Elder Gods breathed into him . . . and this is the War which shall be always fought, . . . for the World is unnatural. When the Great KUTULU rises up and greets the Stars, then the War will be over, and the World be One." (Abdul Alhazred, in Simon's Necronomicon)

"IA! IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!" Raise Chthulhu to the Stars!