Matthews Caitlin - Walkers between the worlds: the western mysteries from shaman to magus

Walkers Between the Worlds

The Western Mysteries from Shaman to Magus

Caitln and John Matthews

Inner Traditions

Rochester, Vermont

To Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and to all who believe in the possibility of bringing things back from Faeryland; and to Gareth Knight and all who seek to rectify the hidden stone.

You are all one, under the stars.

M ERLIN ,

J OHN B OORMAN S FILM E XCALIBUR

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all those with whom we have worked over many years. Special thanks go to Basil and Roma Wilby; R. J. Stewart; Marian Green; Naomi Ozaniec; Vivienne ORegan; the late, great Dick Swettenham; Tony Willis; Wolfe and Johan van Brussel; Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki; Nuinn; Joscelyn Godwin; Adam McLean; Kathleen Raine; Anthony Rooley; Deirdre Green; Phillip Clayton-Gore; Felicity Wombwell and all at the Domus Sophiae Terrae et Sancte Gradale and the Company of Hawkwood; also to Geoffrey Ashe, Delenath and all at Chanctonbury, and to all those who have opened up the pathway between the worlds.

The illustration on page 303 is reproduced with the kind permission of T. and T. Clark Ltd., Edinburgh.

The native and Hermetic landscape

Contents

Foreword

H ere is a book that answers a great need of our timesand it answers it very well.

That need is for a rational and informed description of how to apprehend the forces that form the structure of the inner worlds, those hidden forces that underpin and mold the outer world, which we know through our physical senses, for a realization of the need to come to terms with these other dimensions of reality is fast coming upon Western man.

Those who have not yet understood this need are at times dismayed by what they see as a flight from reason. However, we ought to realize this flight for what it is. It is not a mindless rout of the irresponsible but the winging pinions of an informed intuition no longer content with an intellectual preoccupation with surface appearances.

Others decry what they choose to describe as dabbling in the occult, which they consider either idly foolish or perversely misguided. While we, too, would not wish to encourage the occult dilettante, those of us who have spent more years in this research than we care to remember feel, with all due humility, that we have gained rather than lost in wisdom and human fulfillment.

There is no shortage among us of able, responsible citizenseven if those less well informed may sometimes gasp incredulously when confronted with our view of truth. We who know understand it to be no facile escapism, but a hard and testingthough infinitely rewardingstruggle toward the truth of what we ourselves are, what our place in the universe is, and what our duties are before God and the rest of creation.

Stock political, scientific, and religious answers to these questions today leave many people unsatisfied. Seeking within for the deeper issues may be one way out of a nuclear or ecological crisisalthough ultimately it is more profound even than that! Crises pass, or come to pass. Mans relationship to eternity lasts forever.

John and Caitln Matthews bring to the subject not only erudition, balance, and common sense, but also a wide practical experience. I have shared in some areas of that experience, and so I confidently recommend that individuals place themselves in the guiding hands of the writers of this book. They will not be led astray.

Furthermore, the authors have a breadth of knowledge and wisdom that puts many more strident occult pundits to shame. They are as much at home at the angelic heights of Christian mysticism as with the lordly ones in the depths of the hollow hills. And theirs is a living experience, not mere book knowledge, though, as readers will soon gather, their literary resources are profound.

This is an instruction book for the present and the future. The old-time occult groups, with their body of doctrine and rigid esoteric structure, are fast becoming a thing of the past. Their good has been done. Their weighty volumes of doctrine remain as monuments and milestones along the way. They may still help us now, but the esoteric students of the present and the future will be ones who take what they can find, in eclectic freedom, for the immediate purpose at hand. Their training will be no less rigorous for being more open and unstructured, their working groups no less powerful despite their relatively transitory, even ad hoc, nature.

John and Caitlns Walkers Between the Worlds provides an Ariadnes thread to help a new generation of seekers find their way through the labyrinth, and goes some way toward enlightening less adventurous souls as to what the maze we call this world is all about.

G ARETH K NIGHT , AUTHOR OF

A P RACTICAL G UIDE TO Q ABALISTIC S YMBOLISM

Preface to the New Edition

S ince the publication of The Western Way in the early 1980s, there has been an immense explosion of interest in the spiritual path. Weekend courses, books, and training programs proliferate wherever we look. They range from the earth-based Pagan and shamanic to the mystical and magical, including a fusion of ancient and modern traditions termed, sometimes opprobriously, New Age. Most interest, however, remains in the popular middle ground. Traditional esoteric discipline and progressive training tend to take second place to self-improvement and self-help that may pave the way to spiritual development, but which can just as easily remain complacently self-serving. As the results of a number of self-improvement plans illustrate, concern with physical health and well-being sometimes displaces care of the soul or a sense of service.

The post-religious twenty-first century is in a spiritual muddle. Having thrown out orthodoxies as outmoded and restrictive, dubiously condemned most mystical methods as cults, and cast doubt on the sanity of any spiritual practice, we in this century nevertheless aspire to see ethical standards reflected in our society, then wonder where the standards went and why no one is upholding them! Instead of religions, mystical orders, and ordinary spirituality to inspire and guide us, we now have politically correct watchdogs, governmental bodies, and Big Brother surveillance cameras to police our lives. The Orwellian state is no substitute for the Republic of the Spirit.

Many people are now born and brought up with no spiritual focus at all, but they still yearn for the nurture of soul food that gives true life. Hugh Paston, the dilettante hero of Dion Fortunes esoteric novel TheGoat-Foot God, perfectly expresses this yearning: I dont want anything spiritual, it isnt my line, I had an overdose of it at Oxford. What I want is that something vital which I feel to be somewhere in the universe, which I know I need, and which I cant lay my hand on.(163)

How we lay hands on the vitality of life itselfwhich has been called the Pearl, the Hidden Stone, the Grail, or life eternalis what the Western mystery traditions are all about. There are many paths toward it, many approaches, and every one of them is valid. Instead of looking for a way of entry, we may do better to look within, considering our needs, motivations, and aspirations. Where our hearts desire leads us is usually a good starting-off point for our spiritual journey.