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All over the world, for at least five thousand years (and probably very much
longer), people have celebrated this time of year as the death of the Sun,
of the Male Solar God; Apollo, Cerne, Pan, whatever the form - this is the
end of the year, the end of the wheel. The God exits the wheel of time and
passes into into the Shadow Lands, the realm of the spirits, where souls
await their rebirth.
In the brief span of pre-millenial time now left us, there is a growing
understanding and respect for these archaic festivals, and an unconscious
acknowledgement that our spooks, and how we celebrate them, tell us more
about our selves than our gods. Unlike the rationalist, who would ignore
the dark side of imagination, or the spiritualist, who accepts only the
imaginary as real, we could find a middle path; one in which a consciousness
of death is the consciousness of the mutability of our lives and selves, one
in which we can remember our dead, and let them leave their gentle touch
upon our spirits.
But the end of the twentieth century is not merely a recapitulation of the
human past; we have planted our flag upon a new continent of collective
imagination, which has been named for us; Cyberspace. A place where we can
communicate through infinitely mutable forms, in an inconceivable galaxy of
sensation, this place awes and terrifies us; whatever we want in Cyberspace,
we will find.
Cyberspace is the Shadow Land of human technos; at the end of our striving
we will find the perfect, still mirror in which we see only ourselves. This
can be either good or ill; when a monkey looks into a mirror, no god looks
out. But perhaps we would do well to acknowledge the divine within
ourselves within Cyberspace; perhaps this will help us to understand the
emanations which compose our reflection.
On 27 October 1994, at Life On The Water in San Francisco, California, we
will perform a ritual of CyberSamhain, a ritual which acknowledges and
welcomes the God into his realm on the other side, within Cyberspace. He
must pass through the Goddess, who is everywhere present and need be
welcomed nowhere; before cyberspace took form, she was its firmament.
The great advantage of a ritual within cyberspace is very clear; everyone
who wishes can join with us, *wherever they may be in the world*, and
participate in the ritual. We will be using two wonderful channels into
cyberspace; Mosaic, which allows you to view hypermedia documents which span
the Internet, and Labyrinth, a brand-new Internet visualization tool which
creates a three-dimensional "view" of a space on the Internet. Real
cyberspace.
Using these tools, we will be casting a magick circle whose center will be
everywhere and perimeter nowhere. The ritual will be available through
Mosaic and the World Wide Web, as well as a Labyrinth-based view of the
magick circle. Further, if anyone reading this feels compelled to
participate, they may contribute text, graphics, or other media which will
also be added to the site. Also, anyone who wants to contribute a totem (a
three-dimensional representation) to be placed *within* circle during ritual
will likewise be able to do that.
If you are interested in participating or attending this event, please send
mail ASAP to mpesce@hyperreal.com. We will get back to you with all
details. Alternatively, check out the CyberSamhain home page on the World
Wide Web at http://www.hyperreal.com/~mpesce/samhain.html.
Thank you.
IO EVOHE, and Blessed Be!
Mark Pesce
-- || * That's AL * WorldWideWeb http://www.hyperreal.com/~mpesce/