{"collection":"bos","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bos/bos257.htm","path":"bos/bos257.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bos/bos257.htm","text":"Internet Book of Shadows, (Various Authors), [1999]\n \n \n \n This is mythic prose. Take it as such...\n ------------------------------------------\n \n Elves (Ah Kin) live in Shamballa, the City of Eternal Bliss, also\n called 'Foresthome', which lies deep within the forest and exists\n simultaneously on many planes. Within Shamballa all needs are met,\n all dreams are realized, and no wish is ungranted. Things seem\n dreamlike and intimately real at once, Adventurous elves visit the\n world outside Shamballa, inhabited by all types of plants and animals\n (called, sadly, 'The Dying Realms'). When they do so they are often\n on spiritual journeys or exploratory missions. Otherwise it is only\n the 'half-elf' that braves such a challenge.\n \n All elves are a family. All time for elves is long (and, arguably,\n short). They all greet one another with great big hugs. If the two\n have met before, then they sing songs of their travels since last\n meeting. Humans who hear an elf sing are enchanted by their voices\n and while within hearing distance cannot move, such is the ecstasy in\n which they are wrapt. Plants harmonize with all being and their song\n is the song of the universe.\n \n Elves don't sleep. They meditate in trance for a few moments and then\n enter the world of dreams fully awake. Those elves who spend time\n with humans may be able to join in the human dreams and control them,\n to a certain extent, somewhat like the computer in 'Star Trek: The\n Next Generation' controls the 'holodeck'.\n \n Humans who spend time with elves and encounter such dream-work will\n gradually transform into elves over time. Given shared dreams, they\n begin showing elven characteristics and attitudes. From this observa-\n tion, it has been suggested by elven sages that humans are elven\n 'eggs', which can be fertilized through dreams by an elf who wishes to\n see this 'hatchling' through to 'becoming', or full realization.\n \n As some elves see it, then, humans are like children, some playing\n Mother Nature's game, and some not. Regardless, since elves live so\n long, it seems likely that all humans may eventually become elves. \n \n Elves rarely eat outside Shamballa, living quite healthily on water\n and sunshine. Human food makes them queasy and human liquor is of\n unfortunately poor quality. Elven mead and wine are very strong and\n tasty.\n \n Elves love trees because they are directly related to them. Elves are\n evolved plants, coming from the same 'branch' of the geneological\n family. They understand that trees are intelligent, nonmobile sages\n of great wisdom, spending the entirety of their lives in meditation.\n Elven sages are said to become trees upon their final rebirth.\n \n Elves don't die like humans do. They mature and then, after many\n journeys about the Great Star, (this process is not completely under-\n stood), they wither and are reborn in Shamballa with continued memory\n and a similar, though renewed body. This is the evolved state of the\n vegetative cycle of renewal (rebirth). It is said that rebirth req-\n uires a conscious choice, however, so that elves who venture into the\n Dying Realms and begin to doubt their ability to be reborn may be\n reborn as trees instead. Often rites of death and rebirth are per-\n formed in winter and spring, respectively, at Shamballa.\n \n \n 1160\n \n The entirety of the elven life, the Way, is one of fun, love and\n laughter. They delight in games and their childlike nature combines\n with their often advanced intellect to create some of the most sophis-\n ticated and challenging games of skill and chance, involving magical\n powers, spells, quests and mysteries. Some of those less fortunate\n young elves get lost in the Dying Realms and begin to take the games\n for reality, becoming dour and moody. A brief time in the company of\n other elves usually cures them of this, however.\n \n Their 'religion', if you will, is based on such games. Elves aren't\n required to believe anything, but are told a marvelous story which\n encompasses and enriches their lives.\n \n This is the story which most elves are told upon their lingual maturi-\n ty. It is understood, at the time, that it can help the individual\n understand hir place in the cosmos and give hir a basis for inter-\n action with the World, but that there are other, equally valuable\n stories that will do the same.\n \n 'Ah and Kin were the first great trees. They stood atop the world and\n fruited Sun, Moon, Seas, Stars and the various plants and animals. In\n this way all things grew and ripened, falling off the branch of\n statelessness onto the ground of being. Once there, they crawled or\n moved to different parts of the world, where they were born from the\n seed, pod, egg or womb of their parents. Enjoying the movement of\n their offspring, Ah and Kin died and became the first elves - what\n humans might call 'gods' and the elves call 'The Elders', 'The Ancient\n Onces', 'The Celestial Masters', 'The Old Ones', or countless thous-\n ands of other names of endearment. Gradually Ah and Kin, now unified\n in the elven race, are waking to their true essence and will grow to\n their old strength in a never-ending cycle.'\n \n \n To the elves the Old Ones are less wholly other beings and more divine\n patterns of behavior. In 'worshipping' them elves engage in activit-\n ies with which the Old One is associated. This does NOT make the\n worshipper of greater value than the non-worshipper. Worship is not\n considered a show for others but an ecstatic experience. While the\n practice is considered serious business (if anything is for elves!),\n once one becomes acquainted with the stories, legends about the\n Elders, one begins to realized the value not only of acting but of\n watching, of listening to the new stories which they tell through\n their new worshippers. No harm is ever done in elven worship, and\n those who do so accidentally are advised to return to Shamballa\n immediately to renew their sacred vows. Little if anything is\n known about these vows, but often they are said to be ideal goals\n rather than adopted commandments.\n \n \n The Old Ones are innumerable in their variation. They have as many\n faces and names as there are days in life (and for an elf, this is a\n LOT!). The Old Ones this adventurer knows of thusfar are these:\n \n \n Varda, Star Mother (aka 'Queen of the Stars')\n \n Creatrix, Genetrix, Womb of life. She is associated with planting\n and/or defending trees.\n \n \n 1161\n \n Leollyn, Dancing Father\n \n Magick energy of being, the dancing Song of All. He is associated\n with magick, singing and dancing.\n \n Yow, the Teacher (aka 'Uncle Yow')\n \n The Trickster, the Fool. He is associated with deception and the\n revealing of wisdom, trickery and education.\n \n Cleowyn, Wizardress\n \n Wise One, compassionate Lover. She is associated with magick and\n romance.\n \n Tufyl, Leader of the Festive Spirits\n \n Partier, mirthmaker, intoxicator. Associated with merrymaking,\n drinking, smoking. The Festive Spirits include all those substances\n which trigger altered states of consciousness and levity.\n \n Snassis, Snake Beauty\n \n Regenerator, renewer, rebirther. Associated with awe, 'death' and\n knowledge (books), it is said that Snassis will be the final guide\n beyond the veil(?). Her sisters, Almuldhea and Cleowyin (q.v.) are\n alternatively said to accompany her in this function.\n \n Vitraya, Healer\n \n Healer, vitalizer and restorer of life. She is associated with\n healing, aiding and service generally.\n \n Farrelon, The Game Hunter\n \n Dedicated challenger and adventurer. He is associated with hunting\n and game playing.\n \n Kellon, the Silent (aka 'Eternal Questor')\n \n The keen eye, the sensitive ear. SHe is associated with searching,\n tracking and quests. SHe, paired with Almuldhea (below) are said to\n be neither male nor female, but both and neither. Both are rather\n seldom spoken of, actually, for it is thought that to do so is to\n bring them shame.\n \n Amuldhea\n \n Mysterious Mystery, Darkness in its extreme, SHe is Death in the sense\n of eternal extinction. This is not a concept which elves understand\n well, and many find Hir difficult if not impossible to speak about.\n SHe is associated with sex, secrecy and hiding.\n \n \n These are brief descriptions only. Each has countless tales told\n about them around deadwood fires and in mead-slick taverns late at\n night.\n \n \n 1162\n \n The Pact, by Pete Carrol \n \n Most occult traditions have complex and highly ordered otherworld\n cosmologies and metaphysical theories. Yet their accompanying\n techniques are frequently a shambles. In contradiction to all this,\n one of the fundamental insights of Chaos Magic is that if magical\n technique is sharply delineated it will work because the universe\n itself is more of a shambles than it appears. Or perhaps I should\n more respectfully say that it has the magical property of confirming\n most of the interpretations placed upon it. Thus a wide variety of\n metaphysical paradigms can be made to fit, even if mutually\n exclusive.\n \n So when selecting from the Supermarket of Belief, the critical\n question for the Chaoist is: how effective are the accompanying\n magical techniques? Hence Chaoist magic is characterised by its\n cavalier attitude to metaphysics and its puritanical devotion to\n empirical techniques.\n \n For some time Chaoist orthodoxy has had it that cavalier metaphysics\n and mythology are incompatible with the formal structure of a\n magical teaching order. However, this need not be so if it is only\n technique that is being taught and practised. Experience has shown\n that people can come together and engage in highly productive\n exchanges of practical expertise, and that a formal structure and a\n division of labour encourage this.\n \n The Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros, or the Pact for\n short, is an organisational structure for those wishing to perform\n Chaos type magic in company with others of like mind. The Pact\n exploits the device of a graded hierarchy, with certain checks and\n balances, and is delighted to admit candidates with the drive and\n initiative to rise rapidly through its structure.\n \n Every occult revival begets a magical child or two and Chaoist Magic\n is the major synthesis to emerge from the occult renaissance of the\n last twenty years. The Pact is amongst the prime vehicles designed\n to develop and carry forward that synthesis well into the next\n millenium. It is likely that the Pact will be to the end of this\n century and to the beginning of the next, rather more than what the\n G.D. was in its time, a century ago.\n \n In practice a number of the formal devices of the Pact are treated\n somewhat more lightly than the written conventions might leed one to\n suppose, with members styling themselves with such oddities as\n Frater Vacuity or Soror Impropriety and so on, in deliberate parody\n of tradition. The prime functions of the grade structure are to\n provide a mechasnism for the exclusion of certain psychotic\n misanthropes and neurotic creeps who are sometimes attracted to such\n enterprises and to ensure that that which needs organisation is duly\n attended to.\n \n Persons who, having read and carefully considered the accompanying\n information and conventions of the Pact, are interested in\n contributing to its activities may submit an extensive letter of\n application to:\n OBLIVION, P.O.Box 18514, Encino, CA 91416-8514, USA\n \n \n 1163","title":"Internet Book of Shadows: Elven (Modern Mythic Prose by P...","type":"page"}