Portals to the Twilight Zone
Dark Re-Enchantment, Magick and the Fey
Four hundred or more years ago, walking around the woods at night, in nearly any country, anywhere in the world you would have been at risk. To use the English word, you would be at the mercy of the Fey, indeed, anywhere you would have walked you are at the mercy of these fanciful creatures, sometimes good, sometimes bad, always mischievous. Time and again there are stories of men, contacting, and noticeably contracting with spirits or Fey creatures, for power, or glory.
“And so the poor miller's daughter was left there sitting, and could not think what to do for her life: she had no notion how to set to work to spin gold from straw, and her distress grew so great that she began to weep. Then all at once the door opened, and in came a little man, who said: "Good evening, miller's daughter; why are you crying?"
"Oh!" answered the girl, "I have got to spin gold out of straw, and I don't understand the business." Then the little man said: "What will you give me if I spin it for you?" - "My necklace," said the girl. The little man took the necklace, seated himself before the wheel, and whirr, whirr, whirr! Three times round and the bobbin was full; then he took up another, and whirr, whirr, whirr! three times round and that was full; and so he went on till the morning, when all the straw had been spun, and all the bobbins were full of gold… As soon as the girl was left alone, the little man appeared for the third time and said: "What will you give me if I spin the straw for you this time?" - "I have nothing left to give," answered the girl. "Then you must promise me the first child you have after you are queen," said the little man. "But who knows whether that will happen?" thought the girl; but as she did not know what else to do in her necessity, she promised the little man what he desired, upon which he began to spin, until all the straw was gold.”
Everyone knows this story, and a fitting example it is; Rumpelstiltskin a little impish man, in other words, a Fey. A creature perhaps from another world, certainly another realm. These are numinous creatures that live on the outskirts of time, and place, maybe a popular 60’s television writer would call it “A 5th dimension” the “Twilight Zone.” Most others throughout time would have called it their actual reality, a strange forest where people preferred not to go. However, there is a curious notion that over the last four hundred or so years, our reality has gotten “thicker.” What do I mean by this?
Perhaps it is the case that we have gummed up our eyes, gummed up our ears, our spirits even to the idea of extra dimensions, or at least spiritual ones. Maybe, a better analogy is we have dammed up the rivers flowing from the Spiritual realm to our own. For all his faults Nietzche, influenced by Darwin’s notions of evolution, predicted and lamented our crisis, Nietzche knew that the death of God would cause chaos. With the advent of a secular means of explanation of the reality we see and exist, riding on the coattails of an “age of enlightenment.” God’s “death” was a sounding gong for more than his own demise, but the demise, or at least the damming up of an entire reality, magic. . .
“Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse.” – CS Lewis The Abolition of Man.
It would stand to reason that magic was not stamped out all at once, but certainly, what Newton began Darwin finished. Albeit with different relationships as to their reasoning behind it, the systematization of an understanding of nature was a death knell to enchantment. Newton understood and discovered that there were laws that governed nature, these could be applied to apples and planets, moreover, these laws could be written down and understood, described by formula. Newton was captured with wonder that a rational God created a rational world!1 Darwin, then theorized (I would say erroneously) that such laws could apply to far more than movement, but that science could even apply to the growth of nature and humanity itself. In an era of post-enlightenment rationalism, such a theory was bound to come about one way or another, it is well mapped that others had already theorized of such notions, Darwin was simply more popular.
So, Nietzsche proclaims “God is dead, and we have killed him” perhaps his most famous saying, though not by far his most sinister. In his autobiography, he gets down to what I see as the main point, “I would rather be a satyr, than a saint.” In one of his last works, Ecce Homo, written long after Darwin’s Origin of Species, we see an impulse already arising, the desire for the pagan. The Will to Power, an idea articulated well by another pagan, the much more recent Alastair Crowley “Do what thou wilt shall be the entirety of the law.” This is a credo that existed for as long as humankind has fallen. It was always a given, that with the death of magic, of metaphysics, the death of Christian virtue, that pagan rituals would return. The question would always be, how would it return?
In contract law, or law more generally, there is a notion of implied consent, within the realm of contracts, you can actually bind yourself without express consent, by abiding by the spirit or terms written out in the contract. I am not well versed in the realm of dark magic, and witchcraft, however, looking at old myths, and having listened to former occultists, contracts feature heavily. Satan offered Jesus a contract, he’s offered many people contracts, and so do many of the other minor principalities… look back at Rumpelstiltskin.
“When you think of TikTok, dance challenges, comedy creations and the latest earworms probably spring to mind. But one of the latest trends is focused more on spells, potions and prophecies - witchcraft.
Videos with the hashtag WitchTok have amassed more than 30 billion views, and has made it easier for would-be witches to learn about it. Creators say it's bringing the community closer than ever before. TikTok's #witch hashtag has received nearly 20 billion views, #witchtiktok has nearly two billion views, and #babywitch, a hashtag for those new to the craft, has more than 600 million views.” 2
So declares the BBC, back in 2022, I can’t imagine how much bigger it is, especially given the wide cultural acceptance since then. Popular singers and actors have all but flaunted their devotion to the old gods, the pagan gods, or just Lucifer himself.3 Many atheists pull the trick “you don’t believe in 999 gods, I don’t believe in just one more,” but traditional Christians would laugh at that. There has always been an understanding that if angels and forces of light exist, then the forces of darkness exist too. Moreover, as C.S. Lewis points out we Christians are in “Enemy occupied territory.” What does that mean except that what the bible says about an enemy is every bit as true as what it says about God? Moreover, everything that the Bible says about “other gods” is ratified by many other ancient manuscripts. The Epic of Gilgamesh for example, chronicles a Demi-god, many of the Babylonian manuscripts agree, that they all believed in demons.
Many might be blushing at my statements, ironically enough, many will be Christians asking “You mean to say that the other gods were real?” Many will not abide what I say, that the Egyptians and Babylonians were worshiping real creatures, which they referred to as gods, but what we would call simply “Elohim” or simply spirits.4 Elohim is a word used for any divine creature, or spirit, for more on this particular topic I refer you to the works of the Late Dr. Michael Heizer, or the new book by
“Living in Wonder.”As the Spanish persisted with their evangelism, Montezuma grew angry at the disparagement of the Aztec gods and the insistence by Cortés that the great temple pyramid would look very fine with a statue of the Virgin Mary on top of it.5 - Emphasis Mine
We found two stone buildings of good workmanship, each with a flight of steps leading up to a kind of altar, and on those altars were evil-looking idols, which were their gods. Here we found five Indians who had been sacrificed to them on that very night. Their chests had been struck open and their arms and thighs cut off, and the walls of these buildings were covered with blood.
It is a strange quirk of our modern society that we believe everyone older than us is foolish and knows nothing. Moreover, great historic cities were somehow created by plebians who knew nothing, despite the fact they had dazzling temples, intricate mathematics, and breathtaking understandings of the stars. Another example from the Aztecs.
The Spaniards could not believe their eyes at this great metropolis with its towering temple pyramids, giant causeways, floating rose gardens, and sweet-smelling trees. The most magnificent sight of all, though, was Montezuma himself:
The great Montezuma descended from his litter…beneath a marvellously rich canopy of green feathers decorated with gold work, silver, and pearls…Montezuma was magnificently clad, in their fashion, and wore sandals…the soles of which were of gold and the upper parts ornamented with precious stones…[lords] walked before the great Montezuma, sweeping the ground on which he was to tread, and laying down cloaks so that his feet should not touch the earth. Not one of these chieftains dared to look him in the face.
It has now gotten to the place where people would rather believe that aliens came down to assist such ancient civilizations rather than what they themselves acknowledged the beings to be, gods. Our world is in all reality a porous one, and everyone for all of human history acknowledged that reality. Only in late modernity have we gummed up our knowers, our spirits, and minds to the idea of something else, something more. If at all we do acknowledge something other than ourselves in the universe we prefer to believe in little green men somewhere on Mars, rather than what everyone used to acknowledge were devils, angels, and gods. Creatures of immensely greater powers than any alien, especially because we all regularly contract with them, giving them power over us.
Many might find what I’m about to say a bit snobbish or old-fashioned, perhaps it is, however, I retort - what’s wrong with that? We have contracted with these spirits, the old gods if not explicitly see “WitchTok” then impliedly by how we live. We listen to their music, bear their symbols, speak their language, and transport their powers in our very pockets. Take music for example, there is a skyrocketing level of profanity in music6 something that used to be illegal to do. This is what I mean by “implied consent,” listening to music that is dark, gruesome, and vulgar is not the same as going out into the woods and spilling blood by knife into the lap of a fey. Yet this is the very thing that Plato and ancient Christians warned about, music bypasses our reason and pierces straight to the soul. Moreover, combining music with clothes covered in pentagrams and satyr's heads, partaking in illicit substances thus compromising your will. All of those things certainly would give the appearance of permission to intercede, especially if one dabbles lightly in the occult, with things like astrology.
I would argue that we no longer need to go out to the woods at night time in order to contract with the Fey realm because we have brought them to us! Our world has grown more porous because we are carrying portals to the “twilight zone” in our pockets. What is the internet but another dimension, and extension of not only our minds but our desires? A means of communicating and acting upon some other realm. One might argue that the internet is a material creation of our own, that there are signals we created radio waves, and other frequencies we can explain how the internet works thus it is not numinous or spiritual. I retort that the spiritual always interacts via the material, what else is possession but the Fey imposing itself upon the natural? Is it not at least possible that what we believe is the “cloud” or the “quantum realm” is exactly that, a cloud but one of much older vintage?
Most depictions of the gods were of them up in the clouds, I personally don’t believe in “mere” coincidence. Perhaps it is just that though; we refer to the internet as a realm of technology that is above us, past us in the “clouds.” If you’re like me though, you believe that science and technology aren’t all that different, in fact, ancients such as the Egyptians ascribed them to the same god Thoth. Our scientific advancements have now gone full circle, from complete disbelief in magic to actively partaking and seeking out magick. Many on TikTok are beginning to have “patron” gods, one famous tiktokker calls upon Hecate to be her patroness. People are re-enchanting, they are beginning once again to believe that there is more, the trouble is in what and who they are calling on.
Many are using their little portals to enter the Twilight Zone, more they are carrying it around with them everywhere they go. Our access to the Fey realm is now in our pockets, everywhere we go. I am not saying we must burn our phones and devices, however, I am not - not saying that either. All that I will say is that romps in the Twilight Zone rarely end happily.
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— Thanks, and Godspeed
Jonathan
Great read! Very interesting. I am reminded of the apostle Paul when he encountered the altars to many gods and highlighted the one altered to the unknown God. There have always been many gods that people paid homage to… But in the end, all of them will submit to the One. Your article triggered so many thoughts… Another one is the whole point behind the apostle Paul’s explanation of spiritual gifts and why it is so important to desire prophecy and leverage wisdom and discernment. It seems as if Paul assumed we would always be struggling between these realms.